


Blackwell Springs

by SiryyGray



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Dark Concepts/ Imagery, Ed Swears, Gen, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Murder Mystery, Mystery, No Slash, Parental Roy Mustang, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, because its what he deserves, folk horror, found family ONLY!!!, sorta??, you know i keep that mf tag ON ME
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 114,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26408596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiryyGray/pseuds/SiryyGray
Summary: Ed can’t put his finger on it, but something about this town isn’t quite right. The folks smile a little too much, the soil is a little too rich, and no one ever seems to leave.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Roy Mustang
Comments: 795
Kudos: 539





	1. Earth-like World

**Author's Note:**

> CW: discussion of death/ murder.

Roy did his best to ignore the first two rings blaring from his landline, stuffing his head beneath a pillow and screwing his eyes shut.

Really, he _tried_.

But the tinny shrieking had already woken him.

On the fourth, he groaned and dragged himself out of bed, glaring at the phone from across the room. A glance to his clock informed him that it was _three in the goddamn morning_.

Right. It’s legal to killed someone for interrupting sleep, isn’t it? He’d happily do the time if it meant a single night of peace. Roy’s head was still misty with drowsiness as he picked up the cursed receiver with a gravelly huff.

“What?” He growled.

“ _Someone’s been murdered._ ”

His haze-ridden brain took it’s sweet time buffering, slowly processing the words and the panic soaking through the speaker.

That… was Ed.

He’d been off on an assignment. Away in some lethargic little village where Roy remembered some young cadets with matching red hair getting sent away to act as military police, a Captain to watch over them.

(It hadn’t been too long ago, only a few years. Something about the town not having any real law enforcement…)

The one he’d conversed with Hughes about because the files were a bit more muddied than they should be.

He shook himself, still gripped by listlessness. Why was Ed calling this early? Wait a moment did he just say _murdered_ —

“Fullmetal?” He shook his head, trying to shoo away the sleepiness pouring over him. Roy’s eyes still felt heavy, like there were bricks hanging from his lashes and whispering that he should _absolutely_ just pass out so he didn’t have to deal with this.

“ _Colonel! You need to get your shit together and wake the hell up cause I just found a body_.” Ed certainly isn’t supposed to sound so frantic. Or _afraid_. It wasn’t right. In an inexpressible way the sound was completely alien from his subordinate’s usual tone.

Ed was a raging fire that didn’t slow for wind or rain; since when does he ever sound afraid?

Roy blinked hard, scrubbing a hand over his face in an attempt to regain his bearings. There was a sharp crackle from the line, distorting Ed’s voice into a static infused whisper.

“ _…east two people are dead…_ ” Roy stiffed and fully slapped himself across the face. The words were fizzling in and out of coherency but Ed was racing onwards.

“Fullmetal!” He snapped. The speaker dulled to a hum. Roy drew in a breath, once again trying to understand the information being thrown at him whilst the sun was still snoozing below the horizon. “Slow down. I can only half hear you.”

“ _I don’t really have time to slow down,_ ” Ed hissed. There was a clatter and the sound of fabric catching against wood. Like the kid was tearing open a wall or ripping up hardwood.

“Then explain it again!” The creaking of splinters against grain continued and Roy might’ve asked Ed what the _hell_ he was doing if he didn’t seem to have been set off into a panic. There was another stiff crack and Ed’s voice returned, sounding a bit less unsure.

“ _Two people are dead. I saw it. In the fields. There were—Colonel, something is wrong with this place_.” He stressed through the metallic drone of shitty connection.

“Wrong? Wrong how?” Roy was still working on the sleepy lilting in his voice, struggling to correct his syllables as they fell gracelessly from his lips. Memories of all the conflicting evidence about Ed’s assignment reared up in the back of him mind and barreling through him with the force of a typhoon.

The other line sparked as Ed’s voice rose to a soft shout. “ _Did you miss the part about there being corpses?!_ ”

“Aside from that. _”_

_Slower. He needs to be slower. Calm him down._

His talent at distracting was revving, readily talking hold of what he was saying so that the kid on the phone would stop talking in ciphered circles.

 _“I—“_ Roy heard him take a deep breath and felt a small stir of victory. He really needed Ed to slow down. _“There’s something bad underneath this town. It was missing from all the...”_

A sharp snapping sound cracked through the phone. _“…ink and the—the aqueducts,”_

That was the same thing he’d mentioned a few days back when he’d called to tell the younger of a new lead he’d dug up and Roy realized with a small start that Ed was deliberately keeping his voice lowered, refraining from an outright shouting match.

Which could be chalked up to the fact that it was the dead of night, though Roy began to suspect it had less to do with that and more to do with the clear nervousness that Ed was openly throwing into his voice. “Okay, back up. Where’d you see the bodies? Was anyone else there?”

“ _Yeah. It was... shit. Wait, shit_ —“

The phone crackled. “Fullmetal?”

“ _It’s literally und…_ ” Roy physically pulled away at the loud, clipped jolt that rang through the line. “ _…listen—!_ ”

_Snip._

Then… static

Roy tensed. He knew what a cord being cut sounded like and that was _definitely_ it. There was no mistaking the hollowed trilling and electric clip. He was suddenly wide awake and his throat tight.

Ed never called. No more than once or twice in two years of service had he deliberately phoned in unless it was demanded by Roy himself, or Hawkeye on occasion. Even then, it was a gamble and the young alchemist would only follow through if the coin he flipped landed on the rim instead of heads or tails.

 _Literally_ one in a million.

Ed didn’t call for help, and most certainly not _Roy_ , of all people.

Time slipped away and his mind tripped to keep up. How long he sat there, blinking down at the phone, Roy couldn’t say. But once he managed to pull himself from the daze, he snapped into action. He rapidly scrambled to call the number back, assuming it had come from the inn Ed had crashed in.

Roy kicked himself mentally. He should’ve listened to Hughes. He shouldn’t have put off calling the kid till morning. The conversation had only been a few hours earlier and his friend’s words resounded in his skull.

_Roy, please. It’s not worth it._

It hadn’t been worth it. He grit his teeth and listened to the harsh tone of the phone line.

The ringing went on for two minutes before it was picked up with a click. “What the _hell_ —“ Roy started, but was cut off by a soft, cheery voice.

“We thank you for your call. Who are you looking for in Blackwell Springs?” A young voice asked, far too chipper for someone still awake and on the clock at a quarter after three.

Roy breathed out an irritated huff. “Edward Elric.”

“One moment.” There came the soft _plinks_ of a board being needled with cords, communications being flipped and smoothed by the operator.

“There’s no resident with that name.” The voice told him, tone still carrying a smile with it.

“He’d be at the inn.” He tried, but the operator spoke over him before the words fully left his throat.

“We apologize for any inconvenience, but that name is unable to be reached.”

The fog was fading and Roy started to fumble for a piece of paper. They’d changed their statement after all, and hell, maybe that meant something.

Roy knew full well that Ed could handle himself just fine, but the fact that it appears his communications had not only gone dead, but cut clean off…

It made him feel antsy.

_You’re going to be the death of me, kid._

“Why not?” He asked, still scrawling the mundane switch in diction as thought it actually _mattered_ and trying to remember what it was the younger alchemist had told him.

_Bodies found in a field._

_Murdered, not simply dead._

And… _and_ …?

“We apologize for any inconvenience, but that name is unable to be reached.” They repeated. Roy frowned as they continued. “If you wish to be connected to the local military police, please stay on the line.”

A tape clicked into place and _oh for fucks sake_ had they really put him on hold?

Roy took a blissful moment to consider abusing his rank but the ants that had started to crawl under his skin made him hesitate. The pre-recorded music warbled into the air, it’s childish melody sounding heavy.

 _In the hills, there was a well. And that well, there was a hand. On that hand, there was a ring_ —

He sat back and waited with a grimace.

* * *

Ed glared down at the folder in his hand.

Maybe he should burn it. No, no… that would set off the fire alarm.

Out the window, then! Wouldn’t that be nice. Ed sighed and, quite valiantly, refrained from crumpling the _darling_ assignment underfoot.

The front was printed out in big, neat, utterly obnoxious letters: Blackwell Springs Inspection.

He’d skimmed the papers roughly ten thousand time during the two day—that’s right, folks, _two fucking day_ —train trip. He would’ve slept through most of it had the conductor not been so damn trigger happy with the whistle.

Ed was absolutely pissed because there was exactly no reason for him to be here. This town was infamous for being picture perfect and was closing in on a forty year streak of good harvests. Which was absolutely unheard of, even in the most lush and bountiful areas in Amestris.

Yet here he was, doing a _land inspection._

Even Mustang had been a bit sympathetic to Ed’s plight.

 _Mustang_. The smuggest prick in all the land, had actually offered up his condolences.

“When was the last time they even _needed_ an inspection?” Ed had asked.

“That’s the problem. They’ve been blowing it off for a few years now.” Mustang replied. Ed grumbled and sunk lower into the battered couch, arms crossed stubbornly. Mustang eyed him and it was simply _wrong_ that the man wasn’t teasing the daylights out of the younger. Normally he would, but apparently even Colonel Snappy-Snap had the decency not to mock the upcoming week of wasted time and boredom. Right after Ed had taken some time off no less!

It was the reason Al was missing from his side as well. Resembool had once again become the victim of some nasty flooding, waves reaching right up to the scraggily trunks of shore-resting trees. It swept away a good deal of canoes and one or two wooden docks before Al had decided to stay behind and help.

Ed legally couldn’t.

Now, to say that Ed was a law respecting citizen—hell, even a law _abiding_ citizen—was a slice of heresy the size of Central itself, but he also didn’t want a pissed off Hawkeye dragging him by the ankle back to Eastern Command.

Mustang had fixed him with an odd look, sliding the files over his desk whilst Ed scowled. “Oh come on, Fullmetal. It’ll only take a few days.” Had that been reassurance in Mustang’s voice? Hell froze over and pigs were flying. Ed wanted to punch a wall (right arm, of course) just to let out some of the frustration.

“The last guy liked it there so much that he resigned from the military and moved his whole family.” Mustang offered, like that was supposed to make him feel better.

“Yikes.”

Upon arrival, Ed discovered that Blackwell Springs doesn’t actually have a train station. It’s one of those tight-knit gated communities. Which meant he, with his bench-bruised _everything_ and general frustration at being there in the first place, would have to walk from the station. For three miles.

He threw his head to one side, hissing at the chorus of pops that creaked out, wringing out the cricks that had worked into his body like a spent towel. Ed started to walk, inching closer to committing a jailable offence as he slung his luggage over his shoulder and vowed to drive his foot directly through Mustang’s precious new office door.

He trudged along, sun overhead, the dirt road merrily casting his shoes with a coat of mud. At the very least it allowed him to kick around stray stones as he went. Something dense and grey come into view as Ed drew closer to where the village was meant to stand.

With a small, incredulous start, Ed realized that the wedge of stone _was_ the village.

 _It’s a gated community_.

“Tax dollars at work.” He muttered to himself.

At the edge of the road, right before it vanished behind the wall, there stood two people with their hands clasped behind their backs and smiling kindly.Both of them looked like they’d been pulled straight off a postcard: round-faced and rosy up to their ears like sun-bleached land pirates.

“Mister Elric?” One asked. He looked to be in his twenties, tall and thin with a bright look about his face. Ed raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah?”

The older man gave a polite bow. “Welcome to Blackwell Springs! We’re very excited to have you.”

* * *

They two introduced themselves as the _Tellers_. Father and son.

“Most call me by our family name, Teller.” The father said with a grin. “Though you’re free to call me Alistair.”

Ed wouldn’t most certainly _not_ be doing that. _Teller_ would work just fine. He hoped he wouldn’t even be here long enough to remember their names beyond his time spent here. The younger offered Ed his hand and gave his name anyways. Marcel, he'd said, and proceeded to almost start going on about the meaning before Ed had cut him off with a cough.

Despite the differences in appearances—the older built like a smiling teapot and the younger resembling a very, very sad scarecrow—Ed could tell they were related. He could see it in the way they walked and spoke like they were advertising for farmland with tones sharp like auctioneers.

It gave him mental whiplash when they switch between the mile-a-minute rambles and slower-than-molasses drawling. They circled around part of the wall and Ed couldn’t help but feel like he was being watched, though the only two souls within eyeshot were the ones leading the way with chipper smalltalk.

It was probably just a misconstrued mix of annoyance and sleep deprivation.

Dozens of birds stood at attention along the stone hedge, chipping and squeaking all through their approach and calling after them as they left in a high pitched chorus. Teller chuckled about how they were like _guard dogs_.

He listened to them babble on about the history as he was brought through a heavy iron gate. Ed held in a mild sense of awe looking at the pitch black twists of metal vines, it’s hinges hissing out a low groan as it swung open.

“The walls are made special,” Marcel explained.

Ed frowned. “Why?”

“We had some problems with the livestock getting torn up by wild animals on the far west side. So we shooed ‘em out of the woods in our county.” He replied, pointing to a stretch of trees peaking out from behind troweled soil.

That barely answered his question, but the interest Ed had in the history of what looked like a brick wall was non-existent. He hummed and eyed the streaks of dark, rain-soaked earth. For a place so far to the east, the land seemed rich. Which would probably explain the absurd and insultingly good yield they kept having.

The two chattered on and Ed tired desperately to tamper down his aggravation.

They were honestly being quite nice. It was a better reception than he’s gotten in most places—ranging from casual indifference to literal pitchforks before he even stepped foot into the town—and it was a bit unfair to be so clipped with them.

But Ed was never all that graceful with his frustrations, was he?

“There’s where the cattle stay.” They told him cheerily. It was a tone Ed was slowly getting sick of.

_Be nice, asshole!_

“The fences are a bit wobbly after storms, so sometimes we gotta haul ‘em back.”

Teller chuckled and patted his side. A length of braided leather rope was hanging from his belt. “Can’t leave home without this anymore. Those devils insist on causing trouble.”

He silently suffered through a tale about when the gate broke off and the two had ran around with lassos and probably stretching the truth thin enough to poke it through with a pencil. Ed didn’t have the energy nor did he have the interest in ruining their fun. He just listened and upheld his silence, making little effort to scrub away the displeasure pulling him lips into a frown.

They showed him to the cluster of buildings coloured with wicker roofs and cobblestone walkways, Ed felt himself grow just a little more on edgy seeing people peaking out of storefronts, sneaking glances from between the shutters as though he couldn’t see them.

He gave the prying eyes a sharp glare and they looked away. He could almost feel them coming back within moments

“Most folk live out by their plots of land, but this is the main square. The inn is over that way—“ Marcel gestured to a pale yellow building. “—and the MPs station is a few blocks down.” He whirled to Ed, hands resting on his hips with a patient smile.

The manners that had been pounded directly into Ed’s skull (thanks Izumi!) we’re wailing at him to be cordial. God, did he _try_. Like, really really hard.The cards just weren’t right, but Ed painted on a half smile. He might’ve gratefully thanked them and excused himself to pitch a fit in the privacy of a hotel room, but suddenly there a small horde of kids were swarming their ankles.

Particularly, they were swarming Teller.

“Mister Mayor!” This children pranced around the man while he smiled down, hands being grasped and tugged on. A small boy used his shirt like a jungle gym and sat himself right on top of the man’s shoulder, arms folded over his head and smiling.

Ed’s eyebrow shot up. He glanced over. “Mayor?” He asked. There weren’t supposed to be any town leaders—that still fell under the responsibility of each town’s military police—so how’d this guy get saddled with such a title?

He was waved off. “A nickname, really. I’ve been handling the finances and crops for years.”

“Oh. Alright.”

Ed felt a bit out of place in the scene and started to creep back step by step.The children started to circle Marcel as well, chanting his name like a bunch of bright-eyed hellions. “Can you do the thing?”

_Carefully… one foot at a time… watch for twigs…_

Marcel crouched down and cleared his throat. The kids leaned in, positively beaming and bouncing on their heels. Ed was tempted to book it away while his two escorts were distracted, but the young man opened his mouth and Ed halted his retreat because of the _sound_ that came out.

He was doing a damn near perfect imitation of the bird flock resting by the gates. The pack of children cheered and squealed. “Do it again!”

“Sorry, I’ve got to finish showing out guest around.” He told them, gesturing to Ed. The thought of slipping away was slowly fading because a dozen tiny faces were peering up at him in wonder.

So maybe he has a bit of a soft spot for kids. Sue him.

(He technically wasn’t too different from them. A couple years older and having been slapped with a double amputation before he’d even lost all his baby teeth with a rucksack of trauma slung over his shoulder. Rephrase… he _could’ve_ been similar to them. Maybe that’s why his tempter would ebb while someone young glanced his way. Or maybe they just remind him too much of Al.)

Ed looked to Teller, more impressed than he cared to let show. “Where’d he learn to do that?”

“Family tradition, I suppose,”

A young girl was practically handing off Marcel’s sleeve, swaying while she looked to Ed curiously. He gave her a quick smile and received a giggle in turn.

“Will he be joining us? In the fields?” She asked the older men.

Teller shook his head. “No, no. Mister Elric will only be with us for a little while.”

“Aw!” The kids pouted. “But he’ll miss out on our games.”

Whines and protests rose up but Marcel quieted them with a strict hand held up.

“Mister Elric is very busy!” He explained. Ed cringed at the honorific. “He has lots to do.”

“Just Ed is fine. Calling me Mister is just making me feel old.” The group took to the the nickname like ducks to water and he had half a mind to warn them not to wear it out.

The kids backed off after a few more minutes of questions. The little girl from before asked if he could do magic. He replied that he could do something close and clapped. The little stone daisy he made was clutched between his tiny fists as she curried off, waving and almost tripping over her own feet.

Both Marcel and his father turned to him, looking apologetic. “Now I know you’re probably tired from the ride in, but there are a few things I’ll need to go over with you first.”

“Shoot.”

“Well…” Marcel fidgeted and looked to the older for assistance. He did exactly nothing and gestured for him to continue. “I hope this isn’t too much of an inconvenience, but the weather’s been bad for a bit and our workers are behind schedule. Would you mind waiting a day or so before the actual inspection? It get’s pretty hectic out there and we don’t want to be getting under each other’s feet.”

His improved mood immediately nosedived back into the pits and Ed sighed. What was worse? Getting on these people’s bad sides and trampling through their hard work or waiting another day?

Decisions, decisions…

Ed sighed. “One day?” They nodded in response. His shoulders slumped. “ _Fine_. Was there anything else?”

“Yes. See, uh… below the fields, there’s an old aqueduct.” Ed cocked his head to the side with a questioning look. Marcel hurried to explain. “Way back we had a lot of droughts. It runs in between the crops, just thought we ought to warn you. It’s been decommissioned, but we don’t have the means to fill it in.”

Ed’s hand drifted to his suitcase where the file was stashed and frowned. Had there been mention of that in the reports? He didn’t think there was… he had read the stupid thing over dozens of times and there would’ve been mention of such a thing, right?

“Is it on record?” Ed asked.

“Yeah. We’ve got the papers down in the library archives. It was a while back though, before the MPs started handling that sort of thing.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

Teller stepped forward, pen in hand and scribbling something out on a piece of paper. “Here’s my address,” He handed the slip to Ed, “if you find the time, please drop in. I mean… a real State Alchemist! It’s rare anyone so accomplished comes through Blackwell. Of course, don’t feel like you’re meant to or nothing. Just if you’re in need of company or are having any issues. You come talk to us, yeah?”

“Uh,” Ed glanced down at the writing, feeling more baffled than anything else. Since when do small towns like the military? They were in the east, after all. Most people held held onto grudges like a anchor in a tornado, fiercer then the grip of a soldiers hand over a trigger and almost as deadly. Maybe they their walls had kept them sheltered from the scores of ruin left by war. It could mean some sort of ulterior motive or collective short term memory.

Or, maybe they were just really, really nice and Ed was swiftly flying into the land of overthinking like the overly-suspicious, petulant nutcase he is.

“Thanks.”

He skimmed the writing, in all its hard black lines and thick strokes. The ink wasn’t even level on the page; it had a sticky looking shine. “Nice pen.” Ed commented absently.

Teller clasped his hands proudly. “Heirloom.”

The pair left soon after and Ed skipped his way into the inn and miserably flopped into bed. He pried off his boots as dramatically as possible to an audience of exactly two houseflies and stubbornly shut his eyes.

It wasn’t night, but like _hell_ that would stop him from sleeping until the next day.

No, the time wouldn’t be a deterrent, but the strange feeling in his stomach that made his hands twitch just might. For two solid hours, he refused to move out of both genuine exhaustion and spite. When the tugging in his gut and voices in his ear got just a little too loud, Ed ground and swung himself upright. The moon was crawling into centre stage, the sky growing a little dim, and Ed went poking about the room he’d been put up in.

The clerk had been friendly, but nervous. It was possible most of the little village had been anticipating his arrival, but that might be a little presumptuous. The stammer in their words was clear as day and they only met Ed’s eyes upon handing him the keys.

“This is stupid.” He whispered to himself as he went, snooping around the room. He poked at the cracks in the plaster and ran his hands along the trimming, shifting the phone resting atop a side table to mindlessly search for something. Anything that could justify the stupid, nagging voice in his head that sang turmoil to his exhaustion.

Ed put a finger to the mirror in the restroom and confirmed that no, it wasn’t double sided. The window was locked and it’s curtains drawn shut. The unease didn’t settle, instead it stabbed little pinpricks onto the back of his neck and left goosebumps over his skin.

When the thought of pulling up a floorboard or two crossed his mind, Ed threw up his hands. “And there’s my cue to go to sleep.”

The night had patiently waited for him to fall back into his rightful place amid pillows and dusty sheets but sleep danced right into the lap of unrest with duel middle fingers soaring.

He groaned and buried himself under a quilt doggedly.

* * *

By the next morning there was still a sour taste in the air and Ed started to brush it off as simple loneliness. He was so used to having Al, or at the very least one of Mustang’s men along for missions. He hadn’t even tried to drive his hooks into Havoc or Fuery this time, as there was absolutely no way he could spin it to justify their presence.

Blackwell Springs was the national capital for peace and unending monotony. He wasn’t sure if they even knew what crime was.

The MPs would be lucky if they caught a loiterer. It made sense that he’d be feeling a bit isolated and unsettled. All through the morning, the bizarreness grew and grew.

“Good morning Ed!” A florist called from her booth. He waved back, bewildered and frankly, a little put off.

A pack of kids scurried past him and shouted his name like they owned it. His brow furrowed and Ed continued on to where Marcel said the library was.

He swung by a little cafe to guzzle some motor oil ascent coffee and the kid on cash looked him up and down. “What can I get for you Mister E—uhh…” He trailed off with a sheepish smile. “What’ll it be?” It was like he was self-editing the words just before they left his lips. Ed pretended not to notice and hoped the caffeine would make the world feel less crazy.

He was informed by a mousey young librarian that, to access the archives, he needed to have at least one MP with him. Ed flashed his watch and hoped to essentially verbally bludgeon her into letting him through.

“Sorry Ed. You need an MP.” The librarian said, head tilted and knuckles tapping against her workspace. There they go again using his name… it was fucking _creepy_. Had Teller gone around with fliers or something?

Ed glanced towards the coveted door, holding its boring, mundane-ass secretes just out of reach.

The door to the records might as well have been welded shut and he didn’t want to risk a little clapping action drawing too much attention. So he hung his head and dragged himself around the block to the small, almost friendly looking headquarters. He could see the place labeled at the police station, but it didn’t seem like it would pass proper regulations.

He’s not exactly versed in the subject, but Ed was reasonably sure that the words _Military Police_ weren’t meant to painted pale blue in a cursive script.

Whatever fits the aesthetic, he supposed.

He poked his head in. “Uh, anyone here?” The lights were on, windows open, and obviously the door was unlocked. Ed wouldn’t have broken through the front if it had been, though. He’s not an _amateur_. He would’ve gone around back.

Ed pushed the door open and padded inside. Either this place was madly understaffed or exclusively manned by idiots.

He leaned against the front desk and knocked against the wood twice. “Hello..?”

“Hold on a moment!” Someone called from behind one of the doors dotted about the space beyond the desk. There were two voices murmuring and the shuffling of what sounded like freshly filed printed papers. There was a special, grating noise that came with the envelopes sliding against each other, even from this far away Ed could hear it and shivered.

“Sorry about that.” The same voice called. “We’ve been trying to clean things up around here for planting season."

Two people emerged from one of the other rooms. Ed caught the recognition flashing in their eyes and he was legitimately starting to wonder if there had been fliers passed around.

Or the more likely option that these were literally the only military personnel for a good few dozen miles and _of course_ they’d be briefed on him. He was probably the most interesting thing to happen here since those walls were built.

The officers approached a little quicker once they caught sight of the silver chain looping from his pocket to his belt. They were both young men, dressed up in blue and with papers stuffed under their arms.

Pale eyes and hair as dark as the _night sky._

“What can we do for you?”

* * *

Ed was, in fact, able to get access to the archives. But upon arrival, it was revealed that they used an incredibly outdated system for organizing. It left him to slog through texts, debilitatingly slow and feeling like a hyperactive hummingbird with a life-threatening patience deficiency. Not life-threatening for himself, obviously. It was more of a danger-to-others kind of situation.

The set of eyes looking over his shoulder the whole time didn’t help.

“Do you need anything?” The officer asked. For the third time, Ed nearly jumped out of his skin.

He settled for a startled flinch and turned to glare up at the young man.

“No I’m fine. You don’t have to stay here, you know.” He said. It was getting a bit uncomfortable having something looking over his shoulder and also taking a sledgehammer to his concentration. Every time he felt himself slipping into a decent flow of reading and annotations, _pop_! Magically appearing MP was there to ask the same question.

There were also only two of them, which felt like it shouldn’t be allowed. Wasn’t there some rule about the civilian to police ration way out in the rolling nothings?

Eh.

Admittedly, it was convenient to have someone who knew the archives well enough to retrieve things with a margin of error smaller than Ed’s own. Didn’t mean the trade off was worth it, though.

Intuition was bugging him relentlessly, telling him to turn around; to scan the area or glance over his shoulder. There were dull pins and needles prickling through his body, spiking from the inside out and slithering beneath his skin. It lodged between the joints of his hand and somehow the feeling wormed into his metal limbs as well.

Physically impossible, but it’s not like impossibilities have ever really hindered him before. Impossible things happen all the time.

Like military police who disappear at will.

The young man shrugged, smiling wanly. “I kinda can’t. We’re not supposed to let anyone in here without supervision.”

Ed suppressed a groan. The officer didn’t even try to sound apologetic, nudging Ed good-naturedly with his elbow. The younger considered snapping the appendage off because _oh boy_ was he _not_ in the mood. “You’d have a harder time finding things alone. Besides, we can’t let you figure out all our secrets!” He said with a light chuckle.

“Right. Cause you’re just _bursting_ with ‘em.”

Once the afternoon started to grow hazy with heat and the fans overhead weren’t enough, Ed slammed both hands onto the table he’d been using and stood. His bones felt like they’d been casted in plaster and were cracking cheerily.

He, in a vain attempt to be less abrasive, offered to help put the materials away, but was waved off. “Like I said,” The officer gestured to the rows of files, “you’d have a hard time finding things.”

Ed tried to distract himself via wandering around town, hands stuffed in his pockets He ended up circling a single block four times over, with his freshly polished d _on’t talk to me_ look spread against his face. Apparently it needed some work because everyone was waving and shouting out well wishes. First name employed during each and every exchange.

In the end, he went back to the inn, head ducked low because having to keep up appearances was becoming taxing.

Al wasn’t even here to share his grievances. The traitor.

To Ed’s shock, and absolute chagrin, the phone stowed away in the corner of the room began to ring right as he’d been ready to go scavenge for food. He growled and snatched it up.

“ _What?_ ” He snarled.

“ _Good afternoon to you too, Fullmetal_.”

Ed sat down hard on the floor, fully ignoring the perfectly usable bed in favour of sulking on the carpet. “What do you want? And how did you know where I was staying?”

“ _There’s only one inn_.”

“Damnit.”

He could hear the distinct clicking of a pen being fiddled with. So Mustang was slacking and using Ed as a scapegoat, hum? Minus five points for being uncreative. “ _As for my reason_ ,” The man said, “Y _ou’re supposed to check in when you arrive.”_

“Cut me some slack. It was a two day train ride with no breaks.”

“ _You had all of today, didn’t you?_ ”

Ed scowled at the ground and desperately wished Mustang would kindly back the hell off before he took out each and every one of his frustrations out on him. “Fine. I got to Blackwell. Happy?”

“ _Thrilled_.” Mustang drawled lazily.

Ed glowered as though the wall was the Colonel himself and fully present for Ed to rearrange his teeth. “You are the literal bane of my existence.”

“ _Anyways_ ,” The older stressed, “ _I dug up a lead for you_.”

“You’re _kidding_.”

“ _What?_ ”

Ed’s frown deepened with an annoyed huff. “I’m still waiting on access to to the actual _land_.”

Mustang hummed in thought. “ _Would I be correct in assuming they’re in the middle of planting season?"_

“Bullseye, Colonel. Why’d you have to send me here in _spring_.”

“ _If it’s any consolation, Havoc got dumped again._ ” There was a loud shrieking from Mustang’s end and the sound of laugher.

“It’s not.”

“ _Pity. Don’t burn the place down while you’re there_.”

“A flood, then?” Ed suggested with snark lighting up his tongue like fireworks.

The Colonel sighed heavily and there came a metallic crack. Ed sincerely hoped his pen had just broken from overuse. Karma’s a bitch and Mustang was purposely trying to start a fight. Serves him right to get ink all over his precious ignition gloves.

“ _You’re absolutely insufferable_.”

“You’re the one who called!” He shot back. Mustang promptly hung up and Ed grinned to himself.


	2. Dogs and Canaries

He found himself marching out to the fields the next morning.

The delay had at the very _least_ given him a chance to review the maps held in the archives about where exactly these aqueducts were. He didn’t care much to find how they’d been built, nor what the reasoning was, but Ed was curious about where they fell. It looked like the shafts snaked through the hills and valleys, running along the edges of the crops and feeding into the woods where he presumed there was a well or creek of some kind.

Some of it even strayed underneath the main few blocks of Blackwell’s rustic imitation of a cityscape.

One tunnel stretched out into a thin line below the Main Street, running parallel to the library, two others circled the inn. Those made sense, on some level: water would’ve been easier to access if only underfoot, rather than having to trek all the way to the woods for a few meager buckets.

Curiously enough, there was one channel—larger than most—dug right below a residential house.

Namely, the Teller’s homestead.

Ed reasoned that they’d probably been an important family before the military rolled in and planted their boot on everyone’s neck.

Still, it was weird.

Ed could practically feel the tunnels weaving around below his feet as he walked.

There was a special, dense kind of noise that came from walking over where one stood. When his foot hit the ground, there was a hollow, shivering _thump_ and he’d sidestep. It was almost like he could feel his way along them, sightlessly and at random, but he could feel it nonetheless.

Ed marched over the grassland nestled between crops, kneeling every now and again and poking around.

Land inspections were always the most dull, though they were also easy enough that he could let his mind prance away into daydreams.

His heel clicked against another slithering pathway, the soil packed into a staggered sort of exhale. “I wonder if anybody’s ever—“ He cut the spoken thought off, shaking his head.

No, that would be ridiculous. Anyone would surely get lost down there. Even with the layout in hand, the spiralling twists and turns he’d seen sprawled out was almost nauseatingly complex.

Among the grass, he caught sight of a small ring of white and almost smiled at the idea of something more engaging than literal dirt. His enthusiasm was curbed when he found it was just a wreath of toadstools and mushrooms. Ed huffed and kicked one of the damn things over.

That had been the _third one_ so far. Either some kids had a really weird sense of humour or the farmhands around here weren’t being all that careful with the goods.

“Mind yourself out there!” Teller had told him with a wink. “Be careful not to dig anything up.”

Others had warned him too, in a way. Growing grave for split seconds just to tell him that he ought to be careful and stay on the trodden roads.

He grumbled. _Damn hypocrites._

Ed picked his way across the land for another few hours and started to treat the mushrooms like game, counting them as he went. It was childish, but with the distinct absence of mind readers, he allowed himself the little sliver of juvenile enjoyment. It landed him at fifteen by the afternoon and his stomach started to rudely demanded he get something to eat before it imploded. Ed still hadn’t been able to shake the odd feeling from before. It had evolved past being lonely, braiding into a knot sitting at the bottom of his lungs.

It was mildly unpleasant in the same way a headache might be; a certain inconvenience but honestly not worth seeking a solution to. Ed debated going back to his room and surviving off of the gravel-flavoured rations he kept stowed away like a hyper-anxious squirrel, but a coin toss told him to swerve into a marketplace instead.

It was… odd. Thoroughly odd.

He took the plunge after about thirty seconds of awkwardly staring at list of meal options, picking a door at random before striking up a conversation with the older woman hunched behind the counter.

“Uh, ’scuse me,"

“Afternoon Ed!’ He cringed. “What’re you looking for?”

“Oh, no. That’s not really… uh, mind if I ask you something Ms…?”

“Whidell.” She supplied, eyes crinkling in tandem with her growing smile. “Go right ahead.”

“Why‘re you all so worried about the crops? You’ve had years of good results.”

She blinked in surprise, face brightening. Ms. Whidell gestured with both hands. “Oh no, we’re not worried! We’ve done everything right, so I’m sure the hills will bless us again.”

“The hills?” He parroted back, brows pinched together. She nodded enthusiastically and made a swooping motion with her fingers splayed, waving to the rest of the town.

“Yes. We put in all the proper work, see. We’re not fretting over what _could_ happen, we’re excited for what _will_ happen.”

Ed nodded slowly and slapped down his own hand as it itched to bring his palms together. Instinct was still holding his throat in a death grip and hissing out profanities, but he thanked Ms. Whidell for her time and tried to hurry off. Ed barely made it ten feet away from her before the woman called out again.

“Hold on!” Ed turned, eyebrows raised.

She dug around at her humble workspace for a moment before producing something wrapped delicately in newspapers and tied with a length of twine.

“Here,” She held out the small, boxy package to him. “I’ve heard automail eats up a lot of energy.”

“Uh. Yeah.” He accepted the package and, as fast as possible without actually breaking into a run, Ed rushed around the corner. People waved and smiled, Ed waved back but his eyes were downcast. He felt a little unsettled. As though his privacy had been violated.

Which, in a way, it had.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that the _Fullmetal Alchemist_ had limbs of tinkered steel, but he certainly didn’t make a habit of showing it off. As of late, it's been cold enough to justify keeping his coat on. No one would’ve seen it unless there was a spyglass glued to the ceiling that he’d somehow missed in the manic scrambling of nighttime paranoia.

The townsfolk continued parting for him and Ed came very, very close to finding himself an elevated walkway just to avoid their gazes. That is to say, he was one more too-personal greeting away from taking to the roofs.

It was perfectly plausible that Ms. Whidell didn’t realize how invasive she’d been. Ed hadn’t seen so much as a crutch throughout the whole town, much less any kind of prothetic. Maybe she just didn’t realize her own lack of etiquette—there was a very specific way most would go about in addressing automail, one that she’d basically torn to shreds—and presumed herself thoughtful for thinking ahead.

Still, it made him deeply, incredibly uncomfortable. The package had been stuffed full of baked goods and, as tragic as it was to do so, Ed simply ending up finding them a home in a garbage can.

He hesitantly returned to the cafe from the previous day. The same boy was there, standing alone with a flour powdered apron and an impossibly wide grin.

“So,” He started as Ed approached, “are we gonna pass?”

Ed’s face twisted. “ _Pass_?”

“Yeah! The inspection, did we do good? We’re supposed to have more good fortune from the land and… well, I was hoping you’d give it a blessing too.”

Blessing..? _What?!_

As in, like, a religious type of blessing, or did he mean Ed’s approval?

The boy was looking at him hopefully, hands raised a little in excitement.

Ed felt taken aback, stumbling through an explanation best he could with clumsy confusion lumbering through his words. He tried not to sound _too_ condescending, but, well… how was he supposed to do that? “That’s… That’s not how this works—“

The boy’s face fell, hands dropping down to his sides loosely. “Oh.”

Ed tried again, suddenly feeling almost guilty. Which was dumb, wasn’t it? Even if something went horribly, horribly wrong and Blackwell had to overhaul its economy, it wouldn't be as though it had been _his_ fault. Hell, he didn’t want to be there _at all_. But still, the kid looked so heartbroken that Ed, awkwardly and with roughly _zero_ aptitude for social interactions, tried to offer his own weird apology. That somehow managed to dance around the word _sorry_ altogether.

(Because again, what would he be sorry about? Doing his job?)

“It’s not really something you _pass_ … and I’m not even finished anyways.”

“I see.” He responded in a clipped tone. Ed was handed his cargo with sad eyes avoiding his face.

* * *

“Twenty goddamn ‘shroom rings.” Ed sighed to himself and knelt beside the little spiral. He dug two fingers into the soil, lazily inspecting it. “No wonder they’re doing so well.”

There was more organic matter stuffed into the ground than should be possible. At least a tenth of it must’ve been pure rotten vegetation. These people had peat up to their ears.

Either that, or the people of Blackwell Springs had invented a miracle fertilizer and were laughing behind his back.

He jotted down notes with a small frown, his lovely chicken-scratch marring the papers with numbers and chemical compositions, figuring the ground must be chalked full of _ether_ from whatever was being poured across their crops to keep them from being set ablaze in the summer. Ed sincerely dreaded the upcoming errand back to the library. Coming from him, of all people, that felt wrong.

Edward _I’ve-fallen-asleep-against-more-bookshelves-than-beds_ Elric wanting to avoid a library? Absurd.

It wasn’t the actual place that he wasn’t looking forward to, rather the fact that once again they would insist he needs a chaperon. He could always finds an _conveniently_ unlocked window and start skimming the materials…

Back pocket idea. Ed glanced across the expanse of land and felt a chill run up his spine. There was a loud croaking of frogs murmuring through the freshly overturned ground, sounding gruff and creaky against the soft whistling of the wind. They’d started up a rather enthusiastic choir practice as he returned from the break.

He kept seeing things out of the corner of his eye, only to turn and find a hay bale stranded by heavy weather, or a particularly crooked fencepost leering at him. On occasion there was a patter, or a rustling from the wheat fields—already tall and thriving, the persistent things—but soon after there would be a cheery ribbit and Ed would shrug it off.

It was funny, though, the frogs and their chirping.

As far as he knew, there were no streams nearby.

* * *

Day one of actual inspection: complete.

Ed: miserable.

Water: absolutely volcanic.

He took his sweet time scalding himself under a shower head before plopping down on the uneven floors, kicking his feet up against the wall and skimming through his notes, crossing out and circling what was and wasn’t relevant. The little anomalies only grew as he looked closer and it became clear that he’d have the great displeasure of reworking some of the records.

Hooray! Another delay.

Ed pitched his notebook onto the side table and shifted upright, glaring at the window. He’d ended up pinning the curtains shut because of the nonsensical discomfort gnawing away at his being. Ed glared at the dark drapes. “What?” He asked aloud, as though they might answer.

He was going a little stir-crazy with no one but off-putting civilians to talk with, and it sucked that he didn’t have Al trade ideas with. Ed could get tunnel vision so severe it could cause a traffic jam in these kinds of situation, his focus narrowing into a pinpoint. Al had this wonderful ability to step back and tilt his head at the problem and see the things that Ed couldn’t.

It was mystifying and incredible to watch, every time Al would loosen his shoulders and turn away from their smattering of textbooks and papers and then _click_ , he’d have an idea about a new way to look at things. He wasn’t always right, of course. No one could be, but Ed tended to get lot in his own head when working alone.

It made every space he occupied feel far too large without the presence of his brother, yet claustrophobic at the same time. A loud, piercing sound cut through his thoughts, stemming from the telephone.

Ed, to his own surprise, perked up at the sound. He admittedly needed a distraction. Maybe his silly little theory about _Elric Telepathy_ was true and Al would act as a wonderfully chatty wall for Ed to bounce ideas off of.

“ _Afternoon,_ ” Ed had never felt such a powerful surge of disappointment in his life.

“I’m going to hang up.” He said plainly.

“ _It’s about that lead._ ” Mustang replied. He stiffened, weighing the benefits of telling his commanding officer to take a hike verse hearing him out. Curiosity turned out to be a mighty brawler and beat spite into submission.

Ed sighed. “…go on.”

There was a slight shuffle and the clicks of a pen. Ed wondered if it was the same one from before, and if it had been broken like he hoped. “ _It just became time sensitive._ ”

“How _time sensitive_ are we talking?” Ed asked sharply. He silently hoped that it wouldn’t be too soon otherwise he would be screwed. There was no way Mustang would let him pawn off the rest of the inspection to the MPs or even to one of his own team. He’d shirked off responsibility in favour of five whole days off and Mustang simply loved to make life harder.

“ _You’ll need to be back here within the next four days_.”

Ed felt like the universe was laughing at him. Dangling a shiny new opportunity and snatching it away just to watch the reaction. He exhaled harshly. “I’m going to commit actual homicide.”

“ _Please don’t._ ” The older man said, mild and unfazed.

“No, I’m going to do it.”

“ _Fullmetal_.” Ed made a soft, frustrated noise in response, glaring at the notebook sprawled on the table like it was to blame. Mustang had the nerve to chuckle at him. “ _What, you’ve got something better to do_?”  
Ed glowered at the ground and considered sending a hard punch into the wall. Left arm, since he was feeling generous. Otherwise the plaster would’ve been busted to hell. He didn't, tragically.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a huff. “I need to cross reference a bunch of crap and potentially have to rewrite their stupid records.”

There was a long pause. “ _Pardon?_ ”

“There’s some decommissioned aqueducts under the fields.”

“ _I don’t remember that from the files_.”

Ed barked out a harsh laugh. “Probably because the townsfolk are still using sorting systems from the stone age.” He reached for his notes, snatching up his pen and spinning it like a baton between his fingers. “Everything here is fuckin’ weird though. Like, they’re always trying to make conversation. It’s creepy.”

Mustang scoffed. _“Oh please. They’re just being polite._ ”

“Believe it or not, I do know what politeness is and this isn’t it.” Ed fired back. He leaned back against his bed, feet tapping insistently against the floor. “They’re acting all freakish and going on about fortune and the the land and other weird junk.” He said, a little quieter that before, still vaguely uncomfortable from the interactions. Their smiles stuck to the back of his neck and made his hair stand on end. Ed was getting pretty tired of hearing strangers use his name too.

Mustang had the grace to not outright laugh, but Ed could still feel the teasing grin in his voice. _“It’s a farming town_.”

The soft unease fell away, Ed’s tone rising into a miffed shout. “I grew up in a farming town! No one was like this.” The blond’s frown deepened, almost childishly. “All I’m staying is it’s strange.”

 _“Suck it up, kid. Just do your job and you’ll never have to be around nice people again._ ” Mustang snarked. Ed rolled his eyes with all the force of an angry bull.

“Aye aye, Colonel jackass.”

 _“Why you—_ “ He started indigently.

Ed kindly cut him off. “And quite using me to get out of doing work!” Mustang started to sputter indignantly and Ed dropped the phone back into its cradle. He’d probably get an earful for that later, but it had been _so_ worth it.

* * *

Roy stared down the phone while each and every one of his subordinates laughed.

Even Hawkeye with biting back a smile while Havoc was wheezing into his elbow with tears in his eyes.

Demotions. Court-martialed. All of them.

Roy crossed his arms with a huff and glared. Half of them had the dignity to straighten up and quiet their laugher.

Breda swatted Havoc over the head and pretended to be invested in the stack of mindless paperwork laid out before them. Hawkeye plastered a neutral expression over her face, failing to cover the amusement in her eyes, and approached his workspace. “Will you need someone to ah…” She made a sweeping motion to his own leaning tower of things to read and sign. “Take care of this?”

He folded his hands. “Why yes, actually. There’s something I need to look into.” The man stood, slinging his jacket over his shoulder.

“Is that so?”

He nodded. “Fullmetal informed me of something that’d been omitted from his inspection review.”

Hawkeye looked him up and down, a stalwart mix of mirth and disappointment. Because here he was, excusing himself from work again _with_ the help of Ed. She sighed, shaking her head.

“Please don’t be too long, _sir_.” Her eyebrows quirked down. “You wouldn’t want to work overtime.”

Roy waved her off, assuring that he’d only be ten minutes or so at most and striding down the hall to a painfully dull records room. He jammed both hands into his pockets and allowed his mind to wander.

It was odd that the underground channel hadn’t been mentioned. Perhaps if it had been some kind of legitimate case like a rouge alchemist or corrupt officials, it would warrant being neglected. But in an actual _land inspection?_ It was at the very least a major oversight.

Roy wondering if it could’ve just been misreported; an urban legend in the area told as fact.

No, Ed knew better. He might have a tendency to rush the more tedious jobs—perhaps Roy was a bad influence in that matter—but he wouldn’t have mentioned these aqueducts at all if he hadn’t gone to find them himself.

Curiosity was a hell of a thing, and now it was lighting up in the back of his mind, pushing for an answer. Alongside it stood unsettlement.

Its presence was unexplainable, but the feeling had stood fast ever since the documents for Blackwell Springs had landed on his desk. It wasn’t _apprehension_ : this was a sleepy place with nothing but rolling fields and simple, happy folk.

It wasn’t worry either.

Roy would never say it aloud, but there were plenty of moments wherein he was concerned for the Elrics. From time to time he would give them an assignment he feared might be a bit too heavy. Or there’d be a city calling for alchemist expertise that was a bit too far for his comfort. And sure, _maybe_ the lack of a check-in had made him a little tense, but this was one of the most infamously boring towns in Amestris and, even on his own, Ed was a force to be reckoned with.

Sharp and clever beyond his years, that kid could turn a grown man inside out with his words alone.

Probably with some help from the metal arm too.

No, he wasn’t all that concerned for Ed’s wellbeing, rather the implications of missing records.

Roy slipped into the cluttered room, rimmed with filing cabinets and stuffed with floor-to-ceiling shelves. He picked his way through, skimming the names and cold cases and missing person reports blah blah blah… until he found what he was looking for: a neat, almost ridiculously small folder on Blackwell Springs. Whereas most towns had a basket to themselves, incidents broken up into rows and tagged as necessary, this contained no more than a few dozen pages.

It could be chalked up to the rather confusing system used to organize the documents—split into larger sections to do with history, crime, land, finances and whatnot—but this was still a small amount of information. Almost a century worth of history crammed into the equivalent to a picture book.

He cracked the thing open and was surprised to find it actually _was_ comprised of fifty percent pictures. He flipped through the papers, mindlessly leaning against one of the shelves. Roy read through each one carefully, deliberately making note of the data, muttering under his breath.

“A famine… _Forty_ _years_ of— _what_ …?” He doubled back to reread the denser portions that danced around conclusions. It would give the event, but no cause or solution. Roy brought a hand to his chin in though, his fingers brushing over the ink lightly to see if it might peel away and reveal something else.

There was a chance these had been incorrect files that were corrected incorrectly… that was a mouthful.

“Sir?”

Roy managed to not knock over the shelve he was leaning against and turned to find Hawkeye in the doorway. She raised an eyebrow at him questioningly. “You’ve been gone a while.”

“Have I?” He glance to the clock, watching it smile down mockingly while the hands clasped together at the sixth hour.

She nodded. “A half hour, actually.”

He hummed in response, looking back down to his findings. He gazed down at them, somewhat unwilling to put them away because something about it just… _tasted_ wrong. As though a thick, oily substance was floating through the air and sticking to the back of his throat. Her eyes narrowed at his hesitation. “Something wrong?”

Roy’s face pinched, toying with the edges of the papers in his hand. “Lieutenant,” He started, “What do you know about Blackwell Springs?”

She frowned. “Not much, I suppose. Low crime rates, high crop yield. Why?”

“Let’s call it curiosity. Could you check their criminal records while I put these away?” He waved the documents. “I want to know _just_ how low these crime rates are.” Hawkeye shot him a disapproving look and Roy ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Humour me.”

The expression didn’t let up, in fact it doubled in its intensity, but she backed off and began to comb through the shelves. Roy could feel the watered down animosity rolling over her in tidal waves, flooding the room. He did his very best to ignore it and refocused on pretending to remember where the hell he’d gotten the little history booklet from. He ended up making a rough guess at where it belonged and shoved it into place with the glibness of an overconfident toddler.

He joined Hawkeye where she’d strayed to the opposite corner of the records room. The woman looked perplexed. It made the tugs of nervousness return with a vengeance. “So?” He prompted.

The troubled expression twisted, her eyes flicking over the papers feverishly as though she wasn’t quite able to believe what the pages spoke of. Hawkeye meet his gaze. “There… hasn’t been an incident in forty years. Not so much as a shoplifter.”

Roy stiffened, eyes widening by a fraction. “You’re kidding.” He said incredulously.

“I’m not.” Hawkeye flipped the page and sure enough, it was blank. The chart chronicled through half a decade. Her fingers peeled back the document lay by layer, each one proudly stamped with the words _no incidents reported._

Roy’s jaw twitched, eyes narrowing. This town was perfectly clean.

_Spick and fucking span._

Her expression mirrored his own, the confusion edged with unease. Of course, Roy himself was rounded out with a healthy dose of frustration as the beginnings of a tragically large puzzle started to fit into place. He could only blink at the information in downright disbelief. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s written clear as day.”

Roy shook his head firmly while his mind silently went reeling. They’d had record-breaking yields for forty years, hadn’t they? It could be a coincidence… it _could,_ but—

Maybe the increase in wealth had discouraged crime but to such a _severe_ degree? No. It simply wasn’t _possible_ —Roy couldn’t wrap his head around it.

Hell, he couldn’t even swallow the raw data as it was laid out before him. Roy took the documents from her hands, repeating the motion from earlier of skimming the printed words with his nails, just to see if they might flake away to speak their own truth.

They didn’t.

These were the official, _somehow_ military approved criminal records of Blackwell Springs and it was lining up with their sudden banishment of hunger a little too cleanly. Right down to the month.

Roy glared down at the file. “This has got to be some kind of mistake.”

Hawkeye tilted her head quizzically. “Do you want me to look into it?”

“…No.” He said carefully. “It’s probably just a lucky place.” Roy cast her his very best look of disinterest and watched her own suspicions unravel. He tucked the information into the back of his mind and made a note to be sure his schedule for the evening was cleared.

Roy hoped Hughes wouldn’t be busy after his own work day finished, and _maybe_ would be willing to twist someones arm a little in order to toss Roy a bit of extra information. Or at least justification for the cryptic texts that existed at Eastern Command.

Mostly though, Roy wanted someone to talk to about this—someone who wouldn’t call him crazy or insist it was just poor workmanship, and someone who’d be willing to maybe dig more than they should into this.

Because the strangest part was the complete, and utter absence of those aqueducts.

* * *

Ed dragged himself back to the library with a crick in his neck and a twist in his spine. _Apparently_ sleeping on the floor in a tangle of half-completed alchemic equations and painfully flat hotel pillows will do that to you.

Who could’ve fucking guessed.

He rolled his shoulders back again and grimaced at the long _creeeeeack-pop_ it sang out proudly. It was way too early to be walking around. Scratch that, it was way too early to _not_ be chin deep in dreamland and suffocating under blankets.

But here he was anyways, breathing in the damp morning air while the sun cautiously poked its head above the horizon only to be masked by clouds. Ed ran a hand down his face and wondered how much trouble he’d get in if he simply hijacked some coffee beans and transmuted it into a straight shot of caffeine?

They were already mad enough as is. It felt that way, anyways, with all the sidelong glances and low whispers. Ed thought better of pissing anyone here off further. As much as he wanted to be brash and outwardly annoyed, Ed reeled himself back. He didn’t need any more setbacks. If he could weasel his way into the library early, then he might be able to finish rewriting these stupid records in time to scream _good riddance_ and summersault onto the next train back to East City.

Ed rounded the corner and was devastated to find the library, soulless and dim. Without preamble, he turned and punched the nearest brick wall.

Left hand.

Why yes, he is a prodigy _thank you very much!_

Ed hissed, shaking his hand to rid himself of the vibrations running up to his wrist.

“Ow… damn.”

Two split knuckles and a bruised ego. One hurt more than the other. For a moment, he considered waiting on the steps, but the image it projected into his mind was far too pathetic and disconcerting. So he wandered instead.

Ed had already spent a great deal of time out in the blank stretches of land. He’d wasted the day poking through all the spaces that housed crops and he could confidently say it had been as dull as he anticipated. Save for the mushroom rings.

Those were just… goddamn weird.

A welcome distraction to break up the monotony though. Yes, Ed had already become terribly familiar with the fields. The few blocks of homespun cityscape, however? It remained a bit of a mystery and roughly a thousand times more compelling than literal dust and mud.

After a while, there came little sparks of life. Windows being pushed open and a few stray couples walking hand-in-hand. Ed swerved to avoid them and got away with semi-polite waves instead of verbal greetings. He didn’t have it in him to be called by his first name by absolute strangers this early and without a proper meal to quell the morning misery.

But of course, his weakness was targeted when a young boy swinging between his parents hands broke away and made a B-line for Ed. The grin he wore made Ed dutifully force on a less abrasive expression.

“You’re the alchemist!” He said excitedly, skidding to a halt in front of Ed. He managed to smile. “Are you going to stay? I’d like if you did,”

Ed leaned down. “Nah, I can’t stay. I got a lot of stuff to do.”

“Aw…” The boy whined. “But no one leaves! Everyone always comes here and stays, why won’t you?”

“I’d get in big trouble.” Ed cocked his head to the side like he was telling a secret. “My boss is a big meanie.” The young boy giggled. His parents were rapidly approaching, looking exasperated and a little dismayed.

“The only people who _left_ were the Robinsons. But… but you don’t want to end up like them, you know.” He said, tone startlingly serious for someone so young.

Ed blinked and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

He nodded enthusiastically, his little hands balling into fists and drawing up to his chest in an energetic way. “Yeah! Cause everyone says it’s bad to run off. My mum says it too. So you shouldn’t.”

Ed smiled and gently laid a hand on his head, mussing his hair. “I’m an alchemist, remember? It’ll be fine.”

The boy pouted as his parents came to collect him, for once mostly ignoring Ed and instead admonishing the child for running off. They led him away with no small amounts of protests, hushing his complaints. A bit too harshly, if you asked Ed. “We’re not to talk about the Robinsons. It’s rude to speak ill of the dead.” The mother hissed.

The boy was pulled around the corner, pouting and downtrodden.

“Robinsons...” Ed muttered to himself. “Wonder what happened to ‘em.”

More energy seeped into Blackwell Springs once the land was graced with sunlight and Ed decided to give the library another swing. The doors were unlocked and he sprinted up the steps. Inside there sat the same person as before, casually writing behind their desk. They sighed softly as Ed peeked inside. “If you’re here to look at the archives again, I’m afraid you’ll still need an MP—"

“Actually,” Ed cut them off, “I got permission from them. Checked in this morning and they’re swamped.” He was fixed with a stern frown. Ed shrugged. “But if you’d rather me pull them from their work to watch me read for a few hours…”

He started to make for the door, slow and theatrical. It’s his brand, after all. The melodrama tended to get people to cave faster.

There was a long pause, then a huff. “Fine.”

He offered his thanks with a smug half-smirk and marched off to a paper hellscape of boredom. The first thing he did was go to the resident files because the name _Robinson_ was nagging at him.

But there wasn’t a damn thing.

No identification or even a similar surname. Ed’s brow furrowed and he turned in a slow circle, looking for another spot that might hold what answers he was grasping for.

His eyes settled on an unbalanced row when the floor seemed to arch. Ed’s eyes narrowed and he started to dig through the folders.

Then subsequently fell down a rabbit hole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll level with y'all: this is my least favourite chapter.  
> It's got too much setup, clues and foreshadowing to cut down, but... it's definitely the slowest of the bunch. Still enjoyable, I hope! Or at the very least intriguing. 
> 
> 12-1 2-18-5-1 23-15-13-1-14


	3. Marco Polo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Mentions of death.

“What… the _hell_.”

Ed stared, expression blank and rimmed with shock. The document in front of him was a newspaper article dated back only a few weeks ago from what appeared to be a neighbouring town.

_In a tragic turn of events, both Mr. and Ms. Robinson passed away the evening they had planned to move from Blackwell Springs. After being seen off by friends and neighbours, their vehicle broke down. The road the couple had taken (Whitebark Way) leads to an exit on the far side of the gated town to properly accommodate for a car, and coincidentally it also cuts through the forested area of Blackwell Springs._

_Their belongings were all found intact, though the vehicle had overheated due to faulty spark plugs. Local authorities reported that the couple appears to have wandered off the main road and fallen into the tar pits. Their bodies have not been recovered, and sadly, due to the depth and danger of the tar, they may never be found…_

The tar pits.

Ed—

— _reeled._

His breath stuttered and his thoughts positively took off. They might as well have left his body and soul behind because the _fucking what?!_

How could there possible be tar pits without it having been included in the inspection file? Forget the damn aqueducts, why hadn’t _this_ been mentioned—why hadn’t this been the main point of the stupid assignment? It should be the entire inspection, not some sidebar in a newspaper article.

One that wasn’t even from the town itself.

One that had been half hidden underneath a shelf where the floorboards were warped and uneven and smelled a little rotten.

He stumbled, physically pushing away from the desk he’d occupied and almost tripping over the chair. A cold wave settled over him.

Ed shook himself, leaning over the table once again to re-read the words cleanly printed onto the honey yellow pages. The dust in the room stuck to the back of his throat, making his breath feel clipped.

“It has to be a mistake,” He hissed, “there’s _no way…”_

Ed’s eyebrows pitched downward and he took off, tearing through the shelves without a care in the world about the mess he left behind. Crinkled pages fell as he poured through the files in a frenzy. Curiosity and a gut curdling uncertainty tangled together, making his reading pace double and triple and _race_ for an answer.

He checked through the rest of the civilian identification files; running a hand along each incident report on the far wall that held far too many folders for such a small place; too many accidents seemed to occur and… and they were all _wrecked_ with redactions. Riddled in dark ink and—

Ed drew in a deep, steadying breath and looked down at the mess he’d managed to stir up and something else conveniently decided to snap into focus.

It _clicked_ and there came a soft, vibrating buzz in his ear. They’d had years and years of insultingly good harvest. And there’s a tar sink under the land.

It shouldn’t be possible because Ed knew full well how the thick, black liquid could ruin soils, _especially_ farmland. If the contamination itself didn’t do the trick, then there was a good chance the nasty flavours of bacteria that toiled and thrived in the pitch would finish the job.

What had their number been? It was at least a few decades since they experienced a faulty yield. Ed’s hands twitched and he slowly curled and uncurled them, willing the tension building between his shoulder blades to loosen and unravel. He brushed his hair aside, pinching the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to slow his sprinting thoughts because ten million miles a second _had_ to be over the speed limit.

“Okay. Calm down.” He said aloud. Ed smoothed down his sleeves, mindful of where he stood, and started to pick up that which he had hastily flung to the floor. A stack formed in his hands as he knelt to lift the files, tucking them into their pale, unmarked folders and keeping his murmured thoughts low. “It might’ve been misreported,”

_Then why is it in the archives?_ A cruel, panicked voice mumbled in his ear, its grip on his throat tightening by an inch. _Why would it be from another town? Why would it have been on the ground and not in a file?_

_They’re hiding something._

Ed ignored the fervent cries from the back of his mind with the stubbornness of a boulder. Freaking himself out would do nothing and he was probably wrong. Whatever fanatical and overzealous theories being cooked up by his own unease were probably wrong. It was just nerves.

He was tired, frustrated, unsettled by the overly polite—overly _cryptic_ demeanour that seemed to turn on a cenz—air of the townsfolk and lonely. It was too easy for presently his loose and stupid brain, running on shitty sleep schedules and oiled with plain old spite, to start tossing urban legends and disparate facts into a blender and scream out _food for thought_ with a mighty flourish.

Ed tamped down the flittering theories, then turned to logic and rationalism. The useless bastards shrugged and didn’t offer him one iota of calm.

_They’re hiding something._

_You know they’re hiding something._

“Ed?”

The alchemist almost successfully left his skin behind as he whirled to face the person who’d interrupted his lukewarm crisis.

It was one of the MPs. Ed blanched and his remaining brain power started to rot. His hands were still stacked with slips of paper, half still scattered on the ground.He knew he wouldn’t be able to flip the compulsive lying switch fast enough and instead stared mutely. The young man looked him up and down, then around the room, eyes glassy and bewildered. “Uh,”

He turned back to Ed, still nailed in place by the sudden appearance. “What happened in here?”

“I… sneezed.”

The officer’s lips twisted into a little frown. “You sneezed.”

“Knocked some stuff over.”

_Real smooth, Elric._

He felt a rush of regret but held strong anyways. The officer tilted his head. “Do you need help tidying up?”

“Ah, no I’m fine.”

He hummed softly, hands sliding from his pockets to fold over his chest nonchalantly. “Front desk told me you were here alone?”

He didn’t seem angry or anything, which Ed supposed was good. But the suspicious inflection in his words were like gasoline on the fire for Ed’s fretfulness. “You said that you were allowed to. You should’ve asked instead.”

Ed tried to wave him off. “No, you’ve got stuff to do. Besides, I’m just fixing a few things up here and there, you know? There’s some stuff missing from your files; a couple of mistakes. I’m just going to clean them…” He trailed off, “…up.” The officer’s expression was nosediving, dark and frighteningly calm. It was the look of someone readying to lash out. Ed stepped back, his frame going taut. Without even thinking, his foot braced behind him, ready to shoot forward or skip back if the officer suddenly decided to lunge. The stance looked innocent enough to normal folk, but the young man’s voice dropped into a soft growl.

“There’s nothing missing.” He said firmly.

Ed felt the same frigid feeling from the evenings spent in his inn room coil in his stomach, writhing like a half dead insect—the sensation of eyes burning over you when they shouldn’t be, from places people couldn’t possibly be hiding.

“There _is_.” Ed swallowed. “It’s my job to fix them.”

“Well then you’re mistaken.” The warning rang out clearly. Ed steeled himself and tried again. It was a bit reckless to test the officer, seeing as local MPs _did_ have final authority in their designated counties and Ed could very well be written up or levelled with slander charges. Which, yeah okay, not exactly desirable.

But there is just too much that isn’t adding up and curiosity or fear or something equally damning was revving violently, preparing to take off in a gallop, B-lining for a springboard and jumping to conclusions.

“I’m not. Listen, it’s not a big deal. You guys won’t get in trouble for it or anything.”

The glazed, clouded look parted a little. The officer seemed to relax by a fraction. “I know it’s what you’re here for, but don’t dig too deep, yeah? This place is old and there’s a lot of things we—they, the townspeople, have written differently. Here—it’s all superstition, you know? Be nice to visitors; get approval from them; when something bad happens, they bury their shame and grief…” The lecturing tone melted away a little into something still cautioning, but fonder.

The persistent hissing of invisible eyes still seared through Ed, but he lowered his guard a little. The man seemed sincere. Maybe even protective, as strange as that may seem from Ed’s own perspective. In all fairness, these two officers had spent a good few years here with no one but each other to relate to. They must’ve started to get friendly with the grinning faces of Blackwell sooner or later.

“I’m still going to need to fix the miswritten reports, though.”

The officer shook his head slowly. “Remember? You’re not meant to be here without one of us,”

“Okay uh, can you—“

“No. We’ve still got things to do.” Ed frowned. An idea bloomed dangerously and he plaster on resignation.

“Alright. Give me a minute to clean this all up and I’ll head off.”

The young man bowed his head. “I’ll escort you back.”

Ed nodded like it was a kind favour, biting back a bitter sneer that nearly drove cracks through his mask. Thankfully the officer didn’t attempt to help, instead leaning on the wall just to the left of the doorframe and making quick work of his nails. A bad habit to have, but it was better than a flaring temper.

Ed could attest.

He made a point of rustling the pages, loudly shuffling them, muttering to himself and exaggerating his gestures. He put a few sleight of hand tricks to use and slipped records up his sleeve, back turned. The extra noise covered the crinkling when he folded slips that caught his eye.

Once the floor was clean and everything he didn’t need was back in place, he whirled to the officer. “Alright, let’s go.”

He did a damn near professional level job of acting out gratitude as they walked, feigning interest in everything that wasn’t the library room. It occurred to Ed, midway through listening to the man exclaim about the how annoying the birds along the walls were, that there were perhaps bigger reasons to require a _goddamn chaperon_ in viewing the archives.

Beyond privacy and protectiveness. Besides some sense of obligation, who made the rule in the first place? Certainly not the library staff.

They’d been soft-spoken and gentle to the point that Ed wondered if they were secretly a lot of teddy bears with a passion for literature. Stupid, yes. But an enjoyable enough image to distract himself from the awkward and increasingly stilted conversation.

“I’ll leave you here. It’s just around the corner.”

“I know.” Ed replied, valiantly chasing the testy hitch away from his voice. He made for his room as quickly as he could without breaking into an outright run, head down and drawing in a puff of air through his nose.

His logic and rationalism clawed its way up through the floor and grabbed his mental steering wheel with both hands. Ed shed his jacket and laid out the twenty or so pages he’d filched. There were official sheets labeled as incident reports, newspapers stolen from neighbouring towns and a few historical documents.

All of the deaths were accidents. All of them happened to residents of Blackwell Springs. And all of them had words blotted and scratched out.

Ed’s attention returned to the Robinsons. He looked to the article; the only apparent record of their deaths. Of their existences, actually. And the only visual proof was a commemorative photo alongside the article. Ed guessed it was a memento from their engagement or maybe an anniversary.

The couple were done up in soft light and their hands clasped together, rose gold wedding bands over their finger with daisies engraved into the metal.

Again, Ed wished Al was here. Because he was lost in an endless maze of thoughts and couldn’t force himself to snap out of it and really _look_. His eyes dipped from focus as he stared long and hard. The couple was smiling at the camera, unflinching in their gaze and leaning on one another like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Ed blinked back to reality and physically stepped back. Because if Al wasn’t here to see the bigger picture, Ed would have to.

He scanned the official reports, for other mentions of the Robinsons, committing the names of people who’d had _terrible_ _accidents_ or _tragic deaths_ to memory. He squinted and wanted to curse how each and every mention of those tar pits had been redacted. In dark, thick black ink, they’d been blotted from existence and…

A chill settled over the room in thick droves. It made him stiffen. Ed blinked slowly, kneeling by one of the many files and deliberately, cautiously running his flesh fingers over the words, grazing where it rose with the criss-crossing ink that erased information and blurred fact with truth. He slipped a thumb over where the word _fallen_ might’ve been if not for the—

Oh. Not… _not fucking ink._

It’s not—

* * *

“ _I don’t know what exactly got you looking into this, but you might be onto something_.”

Roy leaned back into his chair, phone in hand and a grim look on his face. “What did you find?”

It was almost midnight and he’d been waiting for this call since he got back to his apartment.

He heard Hughes’ hands grasping at something, the sound of wrinkled sheets and a pen being caught between his teeth. “ _Nothing about Blackwell Springs is correct, not really. All of the information I’ve got on it is completely conflicting. A big contradiction. Like, listen to this:_ ”

Roy, notebook in hand, waited for his friend to start rambling. He knew that’s what was going to happen because Hughes only ever sounded this skittish when his brain was working overtime and the thoughts ran so fast his mouth could barely keep up. His pen hit the paper as Hughes began to take off in a verbal dead-sprint. 

“ _For forty years they’ve been having all those great harvests, right?_ ” He didn’t wait for a reply, and Roy wouldn’t have wasted time trying to get a word in. He just took notes so fast and scraggly he might need to take a moment to decipher them later. “ _Well before they were dirt poor. Their land was completely ruined by bog-water. Flooding all through their fields and even in the town. Nothing would grow there and people kept on moving away. Right up until a family apparently drowned in the bog, then it suddenly receded and the land was rich as it could be.”_

There was a soft tugging on the other end of the line, the shifting of clothing and a distinct metallic _flick_ that meant Hughes was needlessly fixing his glasses. A habit formed over the years that never ceased to cause a little wince of annoyance from Roy.

“ _Get this,”_ Roy shook himself and refocused on his friend’s voice, _“another record says they couldn’t grow anything from drought. It was drier than any other area in the countryside and they used aqueducts to ferry in water from a well on the far edge of the county._ ” Hughes told him.

It was a little unsettling how his normally playful, chipper tone had been missing from the second Roy picked up the phone. It had been there the last time Roy called. When he’d slyly requested that investigations take a look at Blackwell Springs. Off the books, of course.

Hughes could sort through implications and context clues better than anyone Roy had ever known. He trusted the man to understand this was something they should be rather mindful of in case there was an officer purposely switching the data. They’d need to keep from tipping them off until there was evidence or at the very least better proof of misreported information beyond the scarily good track record of absolutely _no_ _crime_.

On their first small, coded little chat, the other had been grinning through the phone. From the words to his inflection, it had been casual and full of teasing.

Now? He was clinical—frenzied, and if Roy had to guess, he’d say Hughes had gained that glassy look he just loved to adopt whenever a problem didn’t have a solution and frustration boiled over.

A true investigator, through and through,

His brow crease, pen hovering halfway through the words. Roy’s frown deepened and his heel started to tap restlessly.

“How could they’ve been both flooded and going through a drought?” He asked, head tipped back to look at the ceiling of his living room. A crack splintered through the plaster and drew back into loops just like the records surrounding this damn town.

“ _My thoughts exactly. Weirdest thing, though…_ ”

“What?” Roy prompted.

_“They didn’t recover those bodies._ ” He said firmly. Roy’s grip on the phone tightened and the same flavour of unease started to claw up his throat in oily droves. “ _The family who drowned… there was only one survivor—their youngest son—the rest got swallowed up by the mud. And if Ed’s findings can be trusted,_ ”

“Which they can.” Roy affirmed. Hughes hummed and something creaked through the speaker. Perhaps the groaning of floorboards or a chair being strained. His voice dropped a bit lower.

“ _Then this whole wetlands thing is a bust and something happened to those people._ ”

The _tap-tap-tapping_ of Roy’s heel against the floor grew a hint quicker and he forced himself to stop, lest he fancied complaints from the neighbours. He settled for moving the tip of his pen in a long, almost unlawful loop to create an overzealously drawn question mark. “So who would be misreporting these things? I mean…” He paused with an irritated grimace. “I knew the cadets who were sent there as MPs. Not _well_ , but they wouldn’t have tampered with anything.”

“ _It goes way before them, Roy. This story is four decades in the making_.”

“Yeah,” He muttered back, “and the people of Blackwell have been putting off this inspection for years.”

They lapsed into a thoughtful silence, a string of barely audible murmurs buzzing through the line from Hughes’ end. Roy looked back up at the water damage induced slivers upon the ceiling, counting them like that might somehow give his brain a good kick and send it into a higher gear. All it did was make him go crosseyed and he ran a hand down his face.

How had this—it was a _land inspection._

A mundane little assignment to a sleepy, _peaches-and-pickles-and-straw-hats_ type of place with the same level of danger as a firefly. The worst case scenario he expected is that Ed would manage to piss someone off and knock over a few fences, coming back smug and proud as ever.

Maybe he’d get some strongly worded complaints.

_Maybe._

But here he was, knee deep in lies and deception, a storm brewing just over his head and readying to let loose a downpour of pitch black, anxiety chalked rain. It would render him useless and, frankly, pissed.

“ _Hey_ ,” Hughes said cautiously, pulling Roy from his tumbleweed of a thought train.

“What is it?”

There was a slight pause before the other man spoke again, his words decorated with soft discomfort. “ _Don’t you think maybe you should get a hold of Ed? Tell him to leave? I mean, with all this… I don’t know. If I were you, I’d be a bit anxious about him being there.”_ Roy’s eyebrow lifted and, like he could feel the challenge through the phone, Hughes drew in a sharp breath and hastily corrected himself. _“I mean, hell, I am anxious. But at least he’s got Alphonse with him so—_ “

Roy blinked and cut off whatever he was going to say next. “Al’s not with him.”

“ _…What?"_ Hughes breathed incredulously. Danger was building in his words and the clouds wreathing Roy’s head grew thicker.

“He… Al is back in Resembool, last I heard. He’s helping with the floods.”

“ _Roy_.” Hughes hissed. “ _You need to get Ed out of there._ ”

He pinched the bridge of his nose with a weighted exhale. “Hughes you’re being—“

“ _I’m serious!”_ He interrupted harshly, the crackling of files having gone silent and replaced with an air of urgency. _“I know Ed’s plenty smart and can hold his own, but what if all this isn’t just shoddy workmanship? What if there’s a reason no one moves away anymore! You said there hasn’t been any criminal active in how long?_ ”

“Forty years, but that’s—“

“ _Correlation isn’t causation, I know that! But don’t you think all this is lining up a little too neatly?”_

He opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated.

Was his intuition stronger than he’d thought? If that nagging, dark feeling that had been festering in his stomach, now slithering up through his lungs, could actually mean something…

Hughes’ voice broke the silence again. “ _Roy, please. It’s not worth it._ ”

“This is just a series of mistakes for all we know,” He responded weakly.

“ _Damn idiot—swallow your pride for once! Even if it turns out to be nothing, do you really want to take that risk?_ ”

No. He didn’t.

Roy shook his head wearily. “He’ll be—“

“ _—the death of you, I know the drill.”_ Hughes finished, still deadly serious and sharper than any home-brewed shiv.

_Damn_ , from miles away his friend could read him like an open book. Even with only the inflections in his voice and soft lilt in his tone, Hughes could pull a shovel from thin air and dig through all those layers of apathy and indifference to find the shards of truth held close to his chest.

Why was Roy even surprised anymore? This is how it’d been for years. Even if there wasn’t intention double means in his turn of phrase, the ground was soft and Hughes’ determination was endless.

He could see through everything Roy said like he was simply looking through a window.

_Glass house, stones, yadda yadda…_

Roy relented with a sigh sigh. “I—okay. I’ll get him on the next train back to East City.”

“ _Yeah?_ ” Hughes inquired hopefully.

“Yeah.” He conceded. “And Hughes… what was the name?”

“ _The name?_ ”

“The _family_.” Roy emphasized. “What was the name of the family who drowned.”

Silence.

_One… two.. three…_

It was like waiting for the pin of a grenade to hit the floor.

“ _Teller_.”

* * *

Ed stared down at the writing in his hand, running his thumb over the words in a repeating motion, stuck on loop like a wind-up toy.

The black letters were carved in hard, dense lines and it was just sticky enough to catch the cuts of his fingerprint and stamp on a copy. It was the same as what had been strewn over all the records. All but that single newspaper article about the Robinsons.

Ed knelt, setting down the scrawled out address and slowly bringing his hands together as though if they touched too quickly the floor would give out.

_Peat. It comes from peat and hydrocarbon and if this works than—_

The trilling of alchemy danced through the air, raising gooseflesh in its wake. He touched the writing and his heart sank.

The letters melted, curled and splattered beneath his careful contact because it wasn’t _really_ ink. There was only one time he can recall seeing anything like that. It’s the same— _exact same_ —same bizarre substance. The way it looks and feels and _smells_.

It was from Teller’s pen and it wasn’t fucking ink. 

It was tar.

Ed dropped the paper and bolted.

He took off down the hall, barely remembering that shoes are something he needs as he went. If they hadn't been on his feet, he would've torn through the inn with socks like a toddler. He might’ve forgotten his keys, but he also didn’t bother locking the door, so really it’s not going to matter. The innkeeper called after him as he careened through the foyer, coat abandoned in favour of slight discrepancy.

“Where are you going?!” They cried as he damn near broke the door, pushing it open with a loud crack of wood on wood. Ed gave a wave but didn’t respond.

He ignored the greetings and concerned questions.

“Where are you going, Ed?”

“Do you need help?”

“Why are you running?”

“Are you leaving? So soon?”

He managed to smile and lie through his teeth as he whizzed by at the speed of a peregrine. Ed told them he was late for something, that he forgot something out in the fields and didn’t want to loose it. He didn’t slow long enough to watch their faces. Ed didn’t care to gauge their reactions because _this_ was important.

He needed to find this pitch sink before all the contradicting information made his mind start to slip. Because it could just be a mistake, right?

That could be why it was crossed out. A series of slip ups before the current MPs rolled in to start tiding the information up in the wake of disorganization and the fact that the Teller’s family heirloom was a weird pen was just a coincidence.

The fact that is held a chamber full of tar rather than proper ink was a relic from times long past.

It was used in ink manufacturing, after all. The assumption wasn't unreasonable. 

Odds were shifting and flipping over over another, going from not likely to almost certainly in a matter of micro-seconds. Ed tried to reign in his racing thoughts to no avail. They blew through him so rapid and cold that the air around him felt chilled in a way it shouldn’t, especially with the sun still hanging overhead. It was hardly mid-afternoon. The whole town could see him as he ran, eyes narrow, focused, and mouth pressed into a line.

He dashed from the main road onto the beaten dirt rivets that spiralled like tangled spools through the countryside, dipping and curving around the hills and between fields. Even as his stamina waned and his breath began to feel hot, stingingly acidic in his lungs, Ed ran.

He played on speed like he would never be able to take another step if he didn’t and kicked up small plumes of dust, trailing faintly behind him. He felt the tug of a breeze on his clothes, grasping at his hair. A voice urged him to turn around and go back because both possibilities would be bad.

Either the article was forged—a fabricated story to cover the deaths of a young, sweet looking couple.

Or the pits were real and had been forcefully erased from the history in all the gracelessness of a child hiding a broken toy.

It still left the question of how the hell they’d managed to keep their alarmingly good haul every damn year.

Tar housed some of the most notoriously soil-ruining bacteria he knew of and it could spread faster than wildfire, more throughly than the plague, and could stick around for years. Unless there was something staving it off or making up for what nutrients were being stolen away, it shouldn’t be possible. From the corner of his eye, Ed caught sight of the little white circles that dotted through the grass and sat perched along the fences.

He rushed past them without a second thought.

Ed veered to the side and leap over a post-and-wire fence. The lowest rung was strung up with barbs, presumably to keep rodents and such from slipping through and pilfering wheat stocks. He ran around the edge of the field, leaves catching his sleeves, sharper than they might’ve been if he wan’t running like the devil was chasing him.

Which it might as well have been. It was grinning; gleeful as it chased him, wielding anxiety and cold hard reality like bludgeoning clubs.

Ed didn’t slow when the woods came into view. He skirted along the edge, eyes peeled for any sight of what he was looking for. It was just rows upon rows of light birchwood, woven into a shield that kept him from seeing more than a hundred yards in. The blond’s pace faltered when he caught sight of something dark hidden within the mosaic of branches.

He turned sharply, falling into a quick jog and trying to get a handle on his sporadic breathing. The marathon length run made his head shake with a roar of blood and soon there came the sour taste of air—arsenic?—soaking in at the corners of his jaw, like the sprint had turned the atmosphere into something toxic.

As Ed moved through the brush, the barricade of pale, steadfast trunks began to dwindle. They became increasingly dull, slumped and rather sad looking.

The dark spot that had caught his gaze turned out to be a handprint.

Ed approached the tree that held the black smear and pulled off the glove over his flesh hand, palm out to press beside the print.

It was tiny. Half of his own hand could cover the whole thing, it couldn’t have belonged to anyone older than five. Even that was being generous.

The hand was dirt-caked and old.

Ed swiped his hand off, replacing the glove and turning in a slow arc.

Trees… more trees… wow, _even more_ — _there._

Another hand pressed against a tree trunk. Ed ran over and sized it up. This one was bigger and accompanied by twin markings on another stretch of bark not fifty yards away. Curiosity began to pull him forward, almost against his will as paranoia tried to drag him back. Each step was a battle. The destination was slowly pulling into focus and granting Ed a serious case of tunnel vision. As thoughhe was suddenly looking through the wrong end of a spyglass, everything around him grew dim and narrow.

There were more handprints. Some old and some newer. Ed could only wonder how many kids had come out here on a dare. Maybe it was a youthful tradition or a rite of passage.

A pair of long, shaved down poles lay sprawled between the trunks, their tips stained black.

The morbid quilt of hand-stamps grew denser, overlapping with one another more and more and the smell hit him so hard it almost knocked him over. It was overpowering, potent and bitter. Ed took a few hasty steps back, covering his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his shirt and trying not to cough as the oily stench infected his senses.

Five more halting steps and he could see them.

The tar pits.

Dark, rippling, and covered in watery mirages.

There were little holes where air forced its way up, the greasy little bubbles spitting _pops_ in a lilting chorus. The ground around the pits went sloping violently into a shallow, two-foot-some-odd cliff.

Ed didn’t dare step closer. He simply looked on in a mix of shock and nervousness.

The oily squelches were enough to make icy fingertips run down his spine, waking goosebumps from their graves like the dead. The asphalt murmured, sticky little flecks shooting forward. It looked as though it was being boiled like syrup, stripped of water until it was dense and cloying. Ed watched as it crested into dark, fist-sized heaps before melting. The pits swelled and surged in harmony with the air pockets that wriggled through the fray.

The dirt was shifting beneath his feet already, pressing up as though the land itself was breathing in deep gasps. It shuddered underfoot and he backpedaled.

Something long and rubbery caught his foot mid-stride. Ed fell back with a muted shout, looking down to see what had snagged a hold onto his ankle. Another unwelcome surprise for his growing list, as luck would have it. Wrapped around the limb was a long, thick cord.

Ed blinked at it in confusion. “The _fuck_ ,” He breathed, “is that?”

He stood, shaking the curled up thread of wires from his leg and, hesitantly, leaning down to examine it.

It looked old, mud-caked and sprinkled with dried up tar. It was warm to the touch, humming with energy. His fingers slid carefully along the worn cord, tracing its pathway. One end vanished into the woods, the other was sheathed within the ground. The woods were towering, with enough hanging brambles to make a canopy. It blocked out the sun.

Ed stared at the wire, following it up until it dove into the darkness.

_How far did the tar pits reach?_

He saw the trees move with the earth’s intake, rustling softly and the horrible image of ribs came to mind—picked clean of sinew, and stippled with muddy asphalt.Ed kept his nose jammed in the crook of his arm, staring for a moment longer before turning away. He ran until he was back at the edge of the forest, then lulled back to an urgent walk.

Every strategic, investigative, even just plain old _curious_ parts of him were saying he should have looked closer; dug down a little deeper and found wherever the wire led to. He tried to erase the thought each time it popped up.

He’d be needing a new page at this rate, surely this one would tear.

Ed wished he could say he left for some true, valid reason that made perfect sense and seemed reasonable.

But the forest was just… _really_ dark.

He didn’t have a light.

Maybe it was juvenile, but the unknown was still unnerving to some degree. The very real danger lurking below the soil did Ed’s courage no favours. His thoughts were once again racing; aflame with questions steeped in fear.

Questions that he sure as hell wouldn’t be asking anyone aloud.

Because someone had blocked the existence of those pits from the records—it must be prehistoric too, with its size and the intensity—and were keeping him under supervision to steer him away from it.

The biggest question was _why_.

Why had they omitted the basin of pitch from their history; why had they been so desperate to keep him away; and why, _for fuck’s sake_ , did their crops remain so egregiously perfect?

A thought struck him across the face like a battering ram and Ed stopped dead in his tracks with a very, very bad thought bubbling up from the quagmire.

The Robinsons— _all_ those people who’d been victims of undisclosed accidents… what’re the chances someone was covering all this up and their bodies hadn’t been recovered for some other reason?

And _what_ , pray tell, are the chances that _Teller_ is connected to it? It was his stupid pen, wasn't it?

A relic of older times, sure. Coincidences were commonplace.

But there was a feeling of _wrongness_ that he just couldn't shake.

Ed’s face turned grim. Someone in Blackwell Springs had blood on their hands and skeletons in the closet. He couldn’t go digging just yet—not in broad daylight—but come nightfall, Ed swore he’d find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, yeah. Back on my bullshit with the midnight postings. What can I say? It's fun. I can post and then immediately pass out.  
> The plot literally thickens... hehe. See y'all in a week! Hope you had a good time with this chapter.
> 
> 20-8-5-18-5 23-1-19 14-15 1-3-3-9-4-5-14-20


	4. Mime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Very graphic depictions of a body. Murder. Implied panic attack and disassociation. Insects. Decay/ gore.

Ed managed to walk right into someone as he warily returned to the inn, throwing glances over his shoulder because suddenly the twisted feeling became like the yanking of an undertow and was making _so_ much more sense.

In the mists of rounding the last corner, eyes wandering in a thinly masked paranoia, he was knocked back. Ed stumbled with a frustrated shout balanced on his tongue, but the words died when he saw who it was.

Marcel.

He was flanked by three young children that blinked at Ed, clinging to the older man like his was a set of communal monkey bars. Marcel didn’t seem to mind. His face grew awash with an embarrassed pink halo and he sputtered. “Oh gosh, sorry Ed. I wasn’t paying attention. You alright?”

This was Teller’s— _Alistair’s_ —son.

He could be in on it.

_No. You don’t even know what’s going on yet! You can’t assume anything._

_You’re alchemist. Think. Think it through and watch your damn step._

“Ed?”

_(Hah. Yeah literally. There’s a lake of tar darker than the night sky, slick and vicious and it’s going to swallow this whole place up eventually. Watch your step. You’ll fall in.)_

He waved, trying to replace the clear agitation with something more passable, but it was like trying to claim vinegar as lemonade. Marcel looked him up and down, frowning. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Did something happen?”

The younger laughed. “Sure, yeah. A ghost. Something like that.”

Marcel grew serious, as though he hadn’t caught the chuckle nor the teasing tone Ed had spread over the words. Even the children looked at him funny, screwing up their noises and hiding behind the man’s legs. His reach forward and grasped Ed’s shoulder. _Hard._

He had to refrain from jerking back with a yelp about personal space. “What did you see?” He asked gravely.

Ed cringed so hard his ears popped. “It was a joke.”

Marcel stared at him for an unbearably long moment, his hold on Ed’s shoulder tightening as he searched the younger’s face. Ed waited, calling upon a patience he saved for moments of diplomacy. But Marcel was holding on too long and he could feel a bruise flowering where his fingers were curling into his skin. Ed took a step back and frowned at the older man. “I was kidding. Geez…”

Marcel looked over him and it was _chillingly_ clear that he didn’t believe a word Ed said. He turned, kneeling and gently removing the children from his clothes, prying the hands away and speaking softly. “You all go run along. I’ll do more voices for you later, okay?”

They nodded hesitantly, biting at their nails and chewing their lips. One little girl gave Ed a surprisingly pointed look that he didn’t even know kids that young could wear. “People like it here.” She said firmly.

Ed’s eyebrows pinched together in confusion. She ran off before he could reply. Or even really process what the hell she was talking about.

Marcel stood back up, his hands being wrung viciously and a slight scowl on his lips. “I know you’re not from here but—” He pushed back his hair with a growl. “—you can’t say that. The kids are one thing but if it had been anyone else… The folk ‘round here are superstitious. Don’t go saying you _saw_ anything ghostly lest you fancy being damn near drawn and quartered.”

He blinked.

Well _that_ seemed excessive. Hyperbole was one thing, but can’t this count as a threat to a State Alchemist? Ed was hardly one to pull rank unless it was about swindling Havoc of his lunch, but any way to coax answers out into the open was being stowed away in his back pocket. 

“Yikes,” Ed huffed stubbornly, arms crossed, “didn’t realizepeople were scared of thing’s that aren’t real.”

Marcel’s lips curled like he was about to spit something nasty, but held back. His featured smoothed over and he took in a calming breath. Ed caught sight of his hands, pressed flat on the hem of his shirt as they twitched, trying to coil.

“They’re _superstitious_.” He said carefully. His voice was tense, eyes darting every few seconds like he expected a ghoul to spring up behind him just for mentioning the supernatural. The pit in Ed’s stomach gnawed its way to his ribs and chest. “You’re an alchemist, running on logic and proof. I get that, but we believe in our stories and traditions as much as you do your science.”

Ed slipped his hands into his pocket, unsure if there was any residual dirt still clinging and if that would somehow get him in trouble. It wasn’t something he would typically avoid.

On most days, Ed embraced chaos with a devilish cackles swinging for the fences. He had no problem flipping any old town on its head, whether it be run by some corrupt asshole or a faulty religious figure with widespread manipulation as a hobby. But even he could admit this was… not normal. He couldn’t run in guns a blazin’. Ed knew how to be tactful when he needed to; he could wring out bits of information.

That’s not to say he was any _good_ at it, but it was still possible on better days.

Maybe he should consider asking Mustang for—

Nope. No way. His dignity liked being intact, actually.

“Stories and traditions?” He questioned, aiming for conversational.

“Blackwell Springs has always been a haunted place.” Marcel told the blond, his eyes stoney and hands still trying to filch stray strings from his shirt. Ed, under the cover of his pockets, slipped his hands out of the gloves. He could check for mud and flecks of bark later.

Ed tilted his head with an expression full of arrogance. “Haunted, huh? Sorry, I don’t buy into that sort of thing.” He replied, using his tried and true voice of _holier-than-thou_ condescension, hoping that Marcel would take the bait.

“And you don’t have too.” No dice. Ed’s spirits fell a little. Marcel, thankfully, didn’t notice. “But no more _jokes_. Especially during planting season. You’ll make this whole place feel rotten.”

The practiced expression wilted. Ed’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before he turned with a wave. “Alright, whatever.”

He took up a brisk pace, rounding the block and taking the long way back to the inn so he could mull over Marcel’s words. That, and so he could avoid the suddenly piercing gaze.

It was still a good few hours until the sun went down.

* * *

The man who ran the inn gave Ed a concerned look when he stepped inside. He tried to wave it off, but a stern call made him stop in his tracks. “It’s best to stay in at night.” The man said in a soft warning.

Ed turned on his heel, looking the clerk up and down, his eyebrows raising. “Why?”

“We aren’t meant to go out after dark.” The man responded firmly. “It’s the rules. The dark isn’t safe for us, most nights.”

“Yeah? And why’s that?”

The clerk shrugged noncommittally. “It’s best that way. I hear that bad things come out in the evenings. Be careful, you hear?”

Ed frowned. “Yeah, alright. Thanks.”

His room was exactly as he’d left it. That is to say, blanketed in notes and with a set of pillows tossed across the floor so he could read without dropping a hardcover on his face. Something he’d done more times than he cared to admit and—

No… no that wasn’t right.

It wasn’t exact. Ed squinted.

The window was locked shut.

Cast iron molded into a bolt. That hadn’t been there before, had it? It couldn’t have been. Ed would have seen it unless... unless he was _losing time._

How long had he been gone for?

It was thick, clunky looking deadlock was pressed onto the wood.It looked like it was new. As in, _brand_ new. The screws were freshly curled into the frame, the paint surrounding the metal peeled with the haste of its installation. Ed was _sure_ it hadn’t been there before. He _would have_ seen it, right?

_How long had he been gone?_

It couldn’t have been long enough for any kind of renovations. Surely the clerk would’ve given him a heads up. And what would even necessitate such a dense lock? He had said the night was dangerous but… this seemed like overkill.

Once again, dread was clutching at him, scoring into his skin and making the whole room feel claustrophobic. Ed went about running his hands along the walls, checking if any out of place nooks or cranes caught on his nail. The floors did nothing but earn him a few fresh slivers and a humiliating measure of indignation.

His paranoia only worsened as he waited for the sun to clock out. The stubborn thing hadn’t gotten the memo yet and was spewing its last, spindly, pathetic licks of brightness over the town. It carved shadows across the windowsill in a thin, ghoulish grin.

Ed began to pace. Rather manically, in retrospect, but it didn’t much matter. He flexed his fingers in a stubborn rhythm, looking for something more grounding than a few old books and the worn down mattress that was nestled atop the bed frame.

Ed almost tripped over a looser floorboard as he went, his shoes barley skimming the ground and only bothering to lift a thumbs width above the floor.

He worried at his lip, nose wrinkled in discontent as he turned in a slow circle, trying to pick out anything that could ease the barreling, incoherent thoughts that spilled across his mind in dark waves like splattered ink.His eyes fell on the phone.

He started at it.

It stared right back, begging, laughing, and challenging him to pick up the receiver.

What’re the chances that someone from Eastern Command decides to do a quick check in? Updates on the lead, perhaps. Maybe if he looked hard enough it would start to ring. Maybe he could play this all off like a convenient coincidence and slyly request a little bit of… assistance.

The phone didn’t ring, though.

As if Mustang would _ever_ be that well timed. He waited a moment longer before huffing out a sigh.

Ed picked up the stupid, mocking little contraption, fiddling with the lone coil of wire. He reached to dial in a memory-worn number (thanks Hawkeye!) but hesitated. The long, languid droning of the dial tone filed out through the speaker, each static, stagnate note marching in a line through one of his ears and out the other. Ed’s hand hovered above the numbers.

_Should he call?_

What if it turned out to be nothing? Mustang would take a good half a day to senselessly chew him out for wasting time and resources, as though the man didn’t do the same anyways. Ed didn’t have any issue with the needless spending of funds, and he knew for fact that Mustang shared his stance. It wouldn’t stop the older man from grabbing the opportunity to giving him a withering look and long ass lecture.

Not by a long shot. He’d probably snatch it up in a stranglehold.

But these were serious mistakes, weren’t they? The tar pits hard already proven themselves to be not only real—as opposed to some misreported information through a foreign newspaper or an urban legend that flourished into pseudo-fact—but _dangerous_. The Robinsons aside, Ed had a myriad of evidence all spread out in front of him like the complex layering of a tapestry, interlinked and woven between one another with particularly dark, blood-tinted threads.

The informations had been redacted as well. That was worrisome.

_You’re overreacting._

Ed’s hand was still stuck in place as he debated and brawled with his own thoughts. What about the lock? It wasn’t there earlier unless… no, he’s not going crazy. Ed might be lonely and agitated being stuck out here, but he _wasn’t crazy_. There hadn’t been a bolt on the window when he left and it couldn’t have just magically manifested all on its own.

_You’re paranoid. Everyone says so._

He’s not crazy. But… but sometimes he gets lost in his own head. It’s not as though Ed had proof other than a regrettably _human_ , faulty memory bank. It overloaded sometimes. He could be wrong. And apart from all that, he didn’t _want_ to ask for help.

It was something he abhorred at the best of times and _damn it_ he needed some hard evidence before he could go around demanding investigation or backup. He was still an alchemist—living in the weeds of hard facts and definable concepts.

Slowly, Ed talked himself down from it. Because calling Mustang or any of the rest would be jumping to conclusions, wouldn’t it. And besides, he’s a State Alchemist. It was expected that he’d be able to hand things like this.

Even if he was alone.

The single note continued to vibrate through through the line, deafeningly quiet.

Ed’s hand loosened, releasing the phone from his almost violent hold. He lowered it, still humming away its dull little tune, softly letting it rest in the cradle.

The dial tone cut off with a jolt and Ed stepped away.

* * *

He managed to alchemize the lock off his window without causing too much noise.

It was the dead of night and, of course, Ed’s time to thrive. He was used to being up until the moon grinned down overhead, working well into the early morning and even through till dawn. He didn’t bother checking the clock as he eased the panel open, but based on the way everything was silent as a graveyard and twice as eerie, it was late enough that he wouldn’t be running into anyone.

If he did, well, honestly Ed might be more concerned for their mental wellbeing than any threat they might pose.

Besides, the clerk had said people tend to stay in.

The streetlights were old, still powered by firelight rather than incandescent bulbs, or even arc lamps. Half of them remained dead, emptied either by the rushes of wind or negligence on the part of whoever was assigned to light them. He carefully swung himself over the ledge, dropping lightly onto the ground. He cast a quick look around at the space and a chill skipped up his spine.

It was so _empty._

Ed shut the window, wincing at the soft squealing of rusted hinges hanging loosely from the frame. It left a soft echo in its wake, but not enough to alert anyone to anything other than a raccoon.

A rat or two, if he was real lucky.

The little gas-lit wicks in the lamps fluttered in their cases, sending long cloaks around the streets as Ed darted through half-shadowed areas.

Logically, he should’ve clung to the darkness as a cover, masking his presence to any wandering souls that were caught in the throes of insomnia, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not with the silhouettes of people flashing at the corners of his eyes in ghostly visages. Not with the occasional chirping of birds that made his shoulders jerk inwards involuntarily.

At the end of the first block, Ed was sure he heard footsteps pattering after him and his heart spiked so viciously the thrumming almost covered the skittering cries of mice. Ed breathed like there was a hurricane in his throat, trying to rub the mirages from his eyes.

It didn’t work.

The illusions kept coming, even as he approached the edge of the brick roads and felt trepidation urge him to take off in a sprint. There were half formed ghouls waiting at the edges of his vision. Ed didn’t dare run.

It was horribly, humiliatingly juvenile. But his fearful mind would whisper, mutter, shout and scream: _What if it follows you?_

So he kept a steady pace and told himself it was paranoia and tricks of the light. As though there was any lights in the fields to play tricks on him.

The moon was cut down to a sliver and glaring down at him like a trespasser. The honeyed, yellowish blur it shone with gave it a monstrous appearance, polished with a mouth of barbed wire ready and waiting to trap victims inside.

Ed inhaled through his nose and slapped himself across the face.

“Get a _grip_.” He hissed. “You’re seeing things.”

The mice wailed again, almost drowning the dry hiss of grass being crushed underfoot. At one point, Ed heard a voice.

As in, a _real_ voice and not any forces of nature.

He swore on his life it had been there and so _horribly_ distinct that it took every inch of his conviction to pretend it was just the howls of wind thrashing around him. He’d frozen for nearly a minute with the feeling ten thousand insect legs crawling through his stomach in perfect harmony with the anxious wasps buzzing through his head. The swarms prickled across his stomach and scurried through his lungs.

Ed kept his mouth shut just in case somehow centipedes or ants manifested into reality and came scampering up his throat.

The whole time, his nerves steadily grew more frayed and an uneasy, the numb sensation migrated from his gut all the way to his fingernails. Glances told him he was alone, but intuition begged him to turn around. It was ridiculous. Childish, honestly.

It was silly to be sacred of a couple of off-handed sounds and go flinching when a strange shadow was formed by the fenceposts.

Ed’s fearful heart promised on every pound of flesh over his body that it was real; all the freakish yelps that sounded a little too human and mirroring footsteps chasing him with only a few yards of land as a buffer. It felt real.

Logic beat back the wish to bail with a bat. It reminded him that all those things were just fallacies. That the rustling in the grass and shifting of soil was nothing more than bluebirds and an overactive—hypersensitive, unsettled—imagination.

It was just… everything was so _dark_.

Like the tar pits had already slung its hands over the land and, mouth gapping and started to swallow it whole, taking him with it. Ed shuddered at the thought and hoped that the Robinsons hadn’t been conscious for the ordeal of slowly being pulled down into the ground.

Tar was a liquid by definition. It would take the shape of its container.

But it was dense. Like combining the experience of drowning and being buried into one, horrific ordeal that was sure to kill damn near anyone. Ed tried not to dwell on it for too long, opting to keep his eyes peeled for his target and politely ignore the looming ghouls skipping at the sides of his vision.

He practiced clicking the fingers of his automaill together, busying himself with flexing them and being as sure as possible that everything was in working order. Even the newest addition Winry had thrown in—bless her violence-loving heart—that could trigger automatic detachment.After using what Al had generously, humourlessly dubbed his _lizard arm_ _trick_ of escaping someones grasp by simply taking the arm off, she’d gotten fed up. Ed fiddled with the automail, flesh fingers slipping between the plates and tracing the shapes they curved into.

His eyes scanned the fields, straining through the near non-existent light. Far off, resting on the horizon Ed could see the wall. It was lined with little bumps he could only assume were those squealing birds. It was gothic as hell, clashing with the rustic aesthetic laid out by the rest of the village.

A blur of white caught his eye, woven into the ground. Ed’s pace quickened, reaching a run by the time he arrived at the mark. Before him sat a spiral of pale mushrooms, no bigger than half a foot across.

Ed dropped to his knees.

He pushed up his sleeves, drawing in a deep breath while taking in one more quick browsing of his surroundings.

Then he started to dig.

And dig.

_And dig._

The ground was soft enough for him to pry it up with only his hands, but heavy with water. It clung to his hands. Staining onto his skin all the way up past his wrists. It burrowed into the open spaces of his automail and packed under his fingernails so tightly they nearly started to bend back. But his suspicions were too strong.

_Dig._

Ed could still hear the grass being brushed by phantom shoes and the alarmed symphony of rodents. His had scraped away stones and mud, the stench of fresh soil so strong it become overwhelming. The once pleasant scent was thick and suffocating. He kept on going. Even as the hole inhaled his arm right up to his elbow and the dark, stubborn earth hugged his flesh, painting it dark and smeared.

_Dig._

The smell, in a terrific fall from grace, became _sour_ as Ed reached roughly two feet down, hunched over and bucketing out handfuls one at a time. All at once the sounds from around him had gone silent. Even the wind had enough respect to shut up. The tips of his fingers were raw and his arm was tiring. Ed was exactly eighty-nine percent sure that, under the grime and nastiness, there were blisters on his palm. The moon was veiled by a set of clouds and he resorted to touch as his primary sense, running his hands along the sides of the hole he’d carved until they hit the bottom, then dragging up another fistful of mud.

 _Dig_ —

—he _touched_ something.

Ed froze.

It was dense and waxy against his hand.

He desperately wanted to jerk back and shove the pile of dirt back where it came from. He wanted to walk right out those iron gates, watchdog-birds be damned, and catch the next train to East City—it didn’t have to be East City, actually. Anywhere else would do just fine.

He steeled himself and flicked away the silty layers over the thing in the ground. Ed prodded at it, blindly looking for something to grab so he could pull it up.

A narrow, fleshy stem poked out. The sickly, rich smell was back, flirting with the bitter taste in the air and become so overpowering it was almost rotten. Ed took hold of it with two fingers.

There was a low, wet sliding sound. Ed grimaced at the feeling of his nail piercing the surface; the sensation of watery liquid lazily sliding out and slicking the object top to bottom. The moon got real brave and peered out from behind its curtain of clouds as he lifted his ghastly prize from its holding cell.

_Shit._

Ed dropped it onto the grass and scrambled back as soon as the gleam from above touched it’s glistening, decayed surface

It was a hand.

A green-tinted, decomposing _human_ _hand_ with chunks half melted away and dirt soaking through the flesh.

Ed stared at the hand in utter shock.

There was a thin, yellow fluid sluggishly coating the rotting skin, spilling from the slit made by his own hand. The smell forced him back again. Ed breathed into the crook of his arm, frantically wiping his hand off on the fabric of his coat and the wisps of grass.

Ed almost kicked the disgustingly macabre thing back into the pit in a moment of pure, disturbed alarm. He managed to halt the instinct because he was doing this for a _reason_. This was only one part of the puzzle.

Ed shuffled closer, breathing through the cloth of his sleeve and hesitantly looked at the hand.

The hand that had been sawed from its body.

He could tell by the jagged edges at the wrist where the skin was frayed and bone was scored with blade marks. The damn thing was flipped so that the palm was slumped atop the fingers. Ed swallowed thickly and reached with his right hand.

Before he even made contact, the flesh _rippled_. Something was inside it.

Ed grit his teeth and with a quick jerk, turned it over. He did his best to ignore the wet flop the hand made and peered down at the disintegrating fingers and found exactly what he had been hoping— _dreading_ —to see.

He felt sick.

On the spindly pale finger, there sat a ring. It was rose gold and engraved with ornate little flowers.

Daisies, specifically.

It was the Robinson’s. This was their ring. Their fucking _hand_ —

The slack, meaty part between the first finger and thumb _squirmed_. Ed gave up the fight and shoved the limb back into its tomb. He could taste the thick scent still lingering in the air. Ed managed to stand and somehow kept his stomach from turning inside out.

He staggered and valiantly tried to hold back the freezing wave of horror that tried to crash down. Determination barely held it at bay. Ed kicked as much of the dirt as he could back into the hole and tried to spit out the taste of bile and rot. His legs threatened to lock into place.

He’d been right.

Those circles weren’t random, they were the hiding place of bodies. _Real_ bodies. Of people with names and friends and family and a home and—

—they’d been _murdered_.

He stayed upright despite the dizzy spell that was coursing through his head. Ed would’ve pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the heartache if not for all the soil and unsavoury substances still draped generously across his fingers. 

Mushrooms and toadstools thrive in decomposition. He’d assumed it was just richer spots in the soil.

Stupidly. Childishly. He missed the signs as they’d stared him in the face. For fucks sake, he’d made a _game_ out of it.

Ed screwed his eyes shut. The wind brushed at him, biting and cruel. He tried to convince himself that he hadn’t known. He couldn’t be blamed for not realizing sooner.

But that was the problem.

Because he _could’ve_. And he didn’t.

One foot in front of the other. Find the others. Find the evidence. Don’t throw up.

His gut curdled, the feeling of twig-like legs returning and raising the hairs over his arm carelessly. It was like he could feel the tiny mandibles tearing at the lining of his stomach; the collective _scritch-scritch-scritch_ of them crawling over one another; their mindless _gnawing_.

One foot in front of the other. Don’t throw up. Rinse and repeat.

Ed tried to rid his mouth of the cloying, decaying smell by sucking in all the untainted air he could find. The nausea subsided a little by the time he stumbled upon the next circle.He almost let an unsettled laugh slip out at the thought.

These were circles. They were deconstructing.

His stupid alchemy-loused brain couldn’t even keep its morbid humour to itself. These poor idiots had stopped at step two.

Ed once again bent down and drove his hands into the land, pawing out clumps of dirt. Sweat beaded over his brow, sliding down his forehead, blurring his vision. Ed swiped it away with his shoulder. It was the only place not freckled with grime.

There was the persistent creaking of the wooden fenceposts, groaning in the distant and they could almost be a string of vocal chords, murmuring for him to get out before something went wrong. He fished out another piece of hard earth and threw it aside. The blisters on his hand had started to burn and something told him that all the peat being rubbed into the open bubbles wouldn’t do him any favours. One of his nails was close to breaking off with how frantically he was shovelling the dirt away.

He sat back, breathing hard. Ed went to brush off his hands.

A fibrous coil of threads tangled over his knuckles when he tried and Ed squinted and _oh god that’s hair_.

He looked down into the little crater. It was shaded by the pile of dirt that had accumulated. He groped down the miniature cliff face and his fingers were met with a stringy, shifting mass of boil-mottled membrane.

His stomach lurched.

This time, Ed didn’t bother with pulling the wasting body up for inspection. He just turned away and let bile sear his throat. He gagged and heaved. He needed to get this stuff off his hands _now_. Whether is was just dirt or if it was the slimy, concealed black fluid that was soaked into the hair, glued to its bruised scalp.

Ed’s chest seized and he coughed up nothing but air and stomach acid.

He forced himself to check two more of the mushroom rings and felt numbingly unwell by the end. In one of the pint-sized chasms, there had simply been a slab of meat. It might as well have been carved from an animal. He scrounged up the courage to lift the chunk from its resting place, metal hand covered by the hem of his—now most definitely ruined—coat and make himself study it.

 _Be objective_ , he told himself.

Bodies are supposed to fall apart after death. They break down and go back into the ground. It was a lesson he’d learned ages ago with Al by his side (god did he miss his brother, why was now the one time where he was absent?) and held close to his chest. The body decomposes. It’s perfectly natural. Decay is natural.

_Who are you kidding? They’ve been divvied up into pieces. Murder isn’t natural._

Ed looked hard, trying to glean anything that might be helpful. The moldy mess of tissue and muscle wriggled in his grasp, something alive and hungry make the sinew palpitate.

He threw it back with an alarmed cry. “Fuck!”

The last held only a narrow bone lashed in tendons. It wasn’t very deep into the soil.

Ed almost threw up again and felt his eyes burn in dreadful awe.

He wrung out the nastiness from his hands on what little clean parts remained of his once bright jacket and squared his shoulder. His face was grim. There was one more thing he needed to know. If his theory held any water this would undoubtably be too big for him, even joined by the local MPs, to handle. Yes, Ed despised asking for help, but this was beyond him.

So far out of his ballpark it was unfair he’d even been place in this league and the awful feeling of illness crept up his back for the third time. The night had gone silent Maybe it was being respectful, maybe it was just as horrified as Ed was. There were no more birds humming or spectral gusts of wind. Even his paranoia had gone on leave, taking the eerie footsteps that had followed him with it.

His feet dragged along the ground as he approached the woods. He let his steps fall harder, search for a familiar _thumping_ sound. It took a little while, but eventually he felt the hollow echo beneath his shoes. The aqueducts. Only a few hundred yards away from where he’d found the tub of gurgling asphalt. It was weaving below a section of waist-high grass, hidden where he wouldn’t have looked earlier in the inspection.

Ed heard a soft, gurgling sounds from the woods and once again wished his stupid, fear-mangled mind would stop acting up because he was getting real sick and tired of the voices and the footsteps and the shadows and... and…

Real.

Those are real.

Real voices and real shapes emerging from between the trees.

His mind wasn’t playing any tricks those were _fucking real._

Ed flattened himself against the ground, eyes wide, hoping that his coat have been dirtied enough to avoid recognition and that the grass would cover him. He suddenly didn’t care about whatever was covering his hand because his breathing was starting to pick up and if they _heard him—_

Ed covered his mouth and peered through the blades of dull grass. He could see their flickering outlines, side by side and talking to one another.

“Don’t drop ‘em.” One said. His tone was gruff and heavy, like he’d just finished a marathon.

“I wasn’t gonna.” The other grumbled back. He was definitely younger. Ed stayed very, very still.

“Well your hand was slipping!” The older man snapped lowly.

There was a grinding sound, something large being dragged over the ground. The noise became a pattern, with a long scraping sound followed by a pause. Ed watched them, unable to move, unless he wanted to give his position away. His heart pounded viciously.

“ _God_ , this one’s heavy.” The man sounded out of breath. Ed was still holding his.

With an alarmed start, he realized they were moving in his direction, slowly with a shadowy, dripping thing held between them. They pulled it along the ground. The wind graciously carried an awful smell through the field and Ed nearly choked on it. It was the exact same as the rich, oily stench that had come rolling off the pieces he’d dug up. A bad—awful, voyeuristic, disturbed—part of him realized that he’d felt that distinct, oppressive wafting even before this. Years ago.

( _Mom._ _Her squirming, blackened form that wailed in scarlet and reeked of rancid flesh_.)

Ed kept his breathing painfully shallow. They moved closer. The thumping in his chest was wracking his whole frame.

Ed inched back, shuffling himself in reverse using his elbows. The stocks snagged at his hair, pulling strands loose. His attempts to get away resulted in a soft, dry _crunch_ , only barely covered by the persistent dragging of whatever those two carried. He sunk down into the soil, willing himself to be invisible.

“Don’t whine.” The older admonished coldly. His tone made Ed bite his tongue. “It’s bad luck to complain about our blessings.”

“I’ll complain all I want!” The other barked. “And ‘sides, if anything is bad luck it’s the kid.”The declaration tore over the otherwise silent land and right through Ed. It felt like his skin was trying to crawl away, doing its damnedest to peel itself from his body and be spared from the shiver of panic that clawed along his spine.

They were talking about _Ed_.

In a hateful, vile tone, there were talking about him.

Ed pressed himself down further and held his ear to the earth, listening for their footsteps.

And the _dragging_.

It vibrated straight into his head sharply. From what he could hear—and see through the curtain of grass—they were roughly fifteen, maybe even ten yards away. Ed could see a shining, face splitting smile through the darkness.

“He’ll be gone soon. Not like he’d gonna catch on to us.”

Another gapping grin cut across the shrouded figures. Their footsteps came with wet sloshes. He could hear a watery tearing sound with each step closer that they took. There was a bleak, coughed out laugh. “Yeah, guess not.”

Stones jutted into Ed’s skin, uncomfortably sharp against his arms and ribs. Ed could feel his stomach writhing and threatening him with another round of sickness. His lungs were being rusted shut, his heart hammering madly, pulsing so fast and hard the blond could feel it in his fingers.

Dizziness was wrenching his coherency away. If he’d been standing, sitting even, he was positive he would’ve fallen over anyways.

Ed was outright terrified.

It sounded as though the men were wearing boots with putty soles instead of rubber, clinging to the ground with a syrupy mess being pulled and mashed against the terrain. Another awful aroma joined the ones from before. It was warm and sulphuric. Bitter like coffee. Raw like salt-tanged blood.

Blacker than the dirt below him.

_Slick and vicious and it’s going to swallow this whole place up eventually._

Ed gulped back a mouthful of burning acid. He forced himself to feel less nauseated, for his pulse to stop racing because his veins were being boiled by the friction from the inside out. Apparently the tar had already started it’s crusade and these two were accomplices.

Also, you know, _murderers._

“So where’d you wanna put this lucky sod?” The younger man asked. They’d gotten so close the shifting of their pitch covered feet was making Ed twitch.

“Same as the other one. Hey, weren’t those two married?”

They were too close. He could see the tar on their boots, splattered up their pants and, if Ed wanted to glimpse at their faces, he’d have to tilt back and look straight up. They were practically on top of him and it was a damn miracle neither had seen the young alchemist yet. Maybe all the stains and sprays of gunk over his clothing real _was_ keeping him hidden.

“Yeah. Don’t you remember? They tried to leave.”

“Idiots.”

They both laughed. Ed shivered. A foot planted itself so close to his shoulder he almost yelped.

_Right. On. Top. Of. Him._

Ed didn’t move an inch, letting frostbite and solid carbon dioxide weld every muscle and joint into place. Save for the untameable shaking.

It ran from his shoulders to his ribs and back, joyously making him tremble. Ed shoved his face into the soil to mask the heavy breaths. He could wash the taste of clay and dirty out later. Ed squeezed his eyes shut and _prayed._ To whoever or whatever might care to listened. He refused to open his eyes and see how close they were to stepping on him

“Fools, no doubt about it.”

“Aye, I’ll grab the hatch.”

Mere feet away, the _thing_ they’d been carrying flopped to the ground. Hesitantly, Ed peeled his eyes open.

He planned to take a fast peek. To quickly confirm his suspicions and go back to denying everything about the situation. Instead his eyes blew wide.

The conversation happening just above him faded out and his chest seized up.

It was a person. A dead person, but—

Ed wasn’t _just_ looking at a corpse.

It was something else. It _had_ to be.

A human couldn’t… even with alchemy, _nothing_ could look this distorted and gory. It wasn’t a body, it could only be a monster.

Worse yet, he hadn’t been graced with the sight of a foot or a hand. Ed stared into the dead, grey-soaked eyes of Mr. Robinson. The face was swollen and sweating out pure _black._ There were bruises streaked over his skin, blooming from purple to flourish of green. It almost covered all the visible flesh.

A mop of sticky, half ripped up hair clung to his scalp. It was blanketed with sludge and, his face leaking reddish fluid from the nose.

( _He? It?!_ )

Ed swallowed hard. He once again held his breath. A violent shudder raked through his lungs. He dully heard the sound of wood being beat on by a flesh fist, but didn’t much care. Those blank eyes were staring through him, crying out something clear, dyed yellow by the rot and then came the _buzzing_.

“S’not opening.” He registered one of the men stay distantly.

The hum took over his senses.

Dozens of flies flittered about, rubbing their frail limbs together like demons preparing for a feast. He saw them burrowing into the waxy skin. They droned, gathering in a swarm around the mouth, prying at the blue lips until they could slip through.

Ed heard a crack and Mr. Robinson’s mouth fell open.

Tar poured out.

It sloshed into a grimy puddle. Another nail in the coffin for Ed’s frayed composure. The only thing keeping him from losing his mind was that he’d kept his teeth firmly sunken into the soft part of his cheek, using the taste of iron to ground him rather forcibly.

The man’s jaw was horribly dislocated and hanging off one hinge. The flies grew frenzied. Ed gagged.

“For god’s sake…” The voice of the older man felt like a knife to the throat. There was still dark, thinning water gurgling out from Mr. Robinson’s mouth. Ed managed to fight his way out of the sickening daze and focus on literally _anything_ besides the piles of natured-chewed flesh. He could’ve counted all the spots where bone was strangled by papery skin, where sinew was eroding into slimy blisters.

_Stop looking._

Ed heard a piercing creak. It sounded like moldy wood being split apart and he heard a mechanical, persistent rattling. It pulsed up through the ground and _damn_ , everything was spinning.

He was going to suffocate on normal old oxygen at this rate, with how his inhales were getting wispy. He was sure he’d breathed in a handful of damp dust by now. Ed might be retching mud before he was able to slip away. The younger man huffed. “Was there another?”

“Nah.” They both latched their hands around the corpses’ ankles and started to heave it away. The older spoke between his laboured breaths. “Buried the missus last week.” The face was pulled from view, eaten up by the grass. It left a trail in the mildew, inky black tar rolling off in droplets like perspiration.

He felt a muted thump through the ground. It sent a horrid chill across his frame. A full body, reflexive grimace.

“You’ll come back to get the extra pound? For the, uh,”

“The wall.” Supplied the other. “Yeah. Get it ready to pickled ’n whatnot.”

“Good. I want to go to bed.” The wooden door they’d pried up slammed shut, its chains rattling lightly like a set of ghastly wind chimes. Ed risked a glance and felt a pang of relief. The two men were leaving, their voices gradually growing lower.

“Wash up before you go inside.” The older said and they moved towards where a patchy gravel walkway crawled around the fields. Ed raised his head by a little, letting himself draw in a slow, proper breath. He tried to pinpoint their silhouettes and voices, but his still reeling mind couldn’t place a face to either.

The shorter of the two crossed his arms. “Why?”

“So no one thinks about what goes on at night and gets fidgety.” The older replied.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Ed saw him wave the other off. Like they hadn’t just dumped someone into a reused grave. The two reached the path, words still echoing carelessly. Each syllable carried across the open space like bullets through a desert with nothing to stop their flight.

“What? D’you _want_ your kids to see you like that.”

“No…”

“So wash yourself off.”

The steps grew more dull. Ed couldn’t hear them through the ground anymore. He carefully got his elbows under him and started to move, readying to bolt as soon as they were out of earshot.

“You think I’d scare them?”

“Maybe. I dunno. Kids are odd little things. Wouldn’t wanna risk freaking them out.”

He had to strain to hear the reply. “Sure.”

Ed watched them vanish around the bend and his arms almost gave out.

He cast a glance around the grass, spotting the bubbling puddle only a few feet away, a pile of freshly turned dirt a little farther beyond. Ed hesitantly stood on numbed limbs. His port ached and he winced at the pressure.

“Okay,” He breathed quietly, “you’re okay.”

The shake in his voice begged to differ. The mound was easy enough to push away, revealing a worn down hatch fastened with a coil of rusted loops. He pressed a hand to it, searching for a sliver or nook that he’d be able to peer through. Despite it’s rickey appearance, there was no space between the panels, nor holes that ran through to the there side.

Ed sat back on his heels and started to sort out his thoughts with what little brainpower had managed to survive the ordeal.

He was honestly pretty lucky that he hadn’t simple malfunctioned. An internal short circuit would’ve damned him to joining Mr. Robinson. Ed took a moment to spit the blood pooling beneath his tongue.

List. Make a list. Deal with this one at a time.

First, he needs to tell someone about this.

_Mustang._

Get back to the inn. Use his home number because there’s _no way_ the slacker would be working overtime especially at, like, three in the morning. If he doesn’t pick up after two tries, go to the MPs.

No, go to them even if Mustang does pick up. They might be strange and nosy, but at least it would give him backup for the time being. They were the closest thing to authority this town had and Ed was betting on them being competent. How else would they’ve been sent out here without a higher ranking supervisor?

After that, maybe he’d need to go excavate the rest of the white mushroom circles. Ed shivered.

He can hole up with the MPs until morning. After that— _after that…_

His head pounded. Ed decided that his weary brain was in need of a moment to be repaired and allowed the synapses to tinker away, loosening and fixing things to lessen his migraine in small fractions.

Making it to daybreak was more than enough.

He drew in a slow, uneven breath, then took off running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's where things begin to spiral. I've mentioned this over on my Tumblr, but I actually managed to freak myself out a bit writing this chapter... probably has something to do with the fact that I was outside in the dead of night, alone, next to a field and listening to a horror soundtrack...  
> Anyways! Hope you have been sufficiently spooked. 
> 
> 23-8-5-14 4-15 20-8-5 2-9-18-4-19 19-9-14-7?


	5. Star-like sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Horror theming. Non-graphic injury. Threats and discussion of murder.

Ed took a moment to thank his past self for having decent foresight.

The window would’ve been locked from the inside if he hadn’t so kindly melted the metal lock right off of the frame. It swung open and he clambered inside with minimal noise, thought that wasn't accounting for the sound of his still gaspish breathing.

Aside from the fact that he’d gotten a heaping of dirt smeared over the windowsill and a handprint stamped to the edge of the glass, Ed had gotten back to his paint-peeled paradise without incident. The bar of which was already at a decidedly earth-core level, but still. He hadn't broken the windowpanes, nor had he taken an understandable moment to scream into the night.

He tore off his coat hastily, lunging for the phone sitting primly on the side table.A think layer of mud found a home on the receiver as Ed tried to remember the Colonel’s stupid number.

He’d managed to keep the one leading to his office in the back corners of his mind, but Ed only recalled being told Mustang’s real contact information once or twice, back when he’d first gotten his certification.

The older man, despite kicking off with taunts and shallow jabs, still offered to be at the ready if Ed needed anything. He seemed sincere enough at the time, but in the world of blue coats and decorated shoulders that meant exactly jack shit.

Ed had taken it as an act of manipulation guised by altruism; trying to sway the younger alchemist into thinking he cared more than he did. Which Ed, of course, had broken over his knee and tossed the remains of the gesture out the window.

He assumed that there must be something self-serving beneath the earnestness. Regardless of how true that was, he was thankful for having been given the information now.

(Perhaps he’d simply convinced himself to believe it was a ulterior-motivate-muddled gesture. Who knows? Certainly not Ed.)

The phone rang once and his anxieties decided to take up a new hobby climbing mountains, reaching higher and higher after each dreadfully long tone. It scaled a cliff that hug over a pool of dread and Ed was holding his breath before the phone rang for a third time.

It was snatched up on the fourth.

“ _What?_ ” Mustangs voice came blazing through, riding on the backs of grogginess and edging at shallow rage. Ed’s mind offered up roughly ten million ways to start this. He swung for the fences with abrasiveness and breathed the words before he could stop them from leaving his mouth.

“Someones been murdered.”

There was a long pause. Anxiety switched from mountaineering to a free fall, making his grip grow impossibly tight on the receiver. If it had been with his metal hand, he was willing to bet it would’ve broken.

“Fullmetal?”

Okay. Composure is dead and the gun rested in Ed’s own hand. He didn’t have time for this wet sock of a man to wake himself up. Ed told him as much.

If he’d been coherent, Mustang surely would’ve been livid, but seeing as he fell quiet instead, that wouldn’t be a problem. Ed eyed his jacket laying on the floor, colouring the wood darker and he made a totally, completely, _uncharacteristically_ brash decision and jammed his automail in between the floorboards.

He levered and pried it upwards, the phone discarded on the table to free up both hands. His fingers were still raw from digging up… _Ms. Robinson_ , and the wood was sending slivers through to his knuckles.

Mustang replied by telling him to slow down and Ed was starting to grow increasingly antsy. The prickling feeling of being watched was stronger than ever and now he had evidence that it might not just be his own shorted out circuits.

Who's to say they didn't have another accomplice? More?

“There more shit missing from the files. They’ve got a _damn tar_ sink under the woods and at least two people are dead from it. Those aqueducts are the dumping grounds—“

“ _Fullmetal!_ ” Mustang barked. His tone was sharper, more conscientious than before. “S _low down. I can only half hear you._ ”

Ed paused for a moment, hearing the crackling of a dying line rustling through the speaker. Had he broken it or something? Crap. If this thing decided to croak in this middle of the call he’d have to wait twice as long to get through again.

The police station was a few blocks away. Ed could run there fast enough, right?

“I don’t really have time to slow down,” He hissed back frantically.

The board Ed had been clawing at finally gave way, breaking open so fast he nearly nailed himself in the nose on the recoil. Ed stuffed his ruined coat into the open space and kicked it shut.

Burying the evidence, so to speak. Burying the...

 _God_ , he felt sick.

“ _Then explain it again!”_ Mustang demanded. Ed pinched his arm hard and tried to quell his own racing thoughts. It didn’t really do much. The words still tumbling from his mouth in treacherous landslides.

He tried to articulate that something was wrong, beyond the death sitting in the land, wreathed by toadstools and failing miserably. It came out frenzied and the backs of his eyelids insisted on showing him a pair of disease-glazed eyes and a shattered jaw. 

“Aside from that.” Mustang prompted smoothly. Ed remembered that breathing was a fantastic way to stay alive and gave it a try.

The air didn't taste like tar and that alone was enough to let his head clear a little.

Mustang, the sneaky bastard, was coaxing him back to the land of the sane. The younger alchemist was mildly impressed; despite his hazy, sleep muddled state, the Colonel was still annoyingly _good_ at that. He was smart enough to slyly talk Ed into taking a breath and one, mile long step back from his own franticness. And it _worked_.

What a prick.

Ed did his best to keep the panic from leeching into his voice as he gave a painfully abbreviated explanation that, even with the careful, frustrated pleading from his superior to _please kid relax for two seconds I’m still half dreaming,_ he stumbled and rushed through.

Then something hit him hard. Like a bullet or a speeding train or, shit, a bat to the back of his head. Ed breathed out curses because it shouldn't have taken him this long to fit these two, clearly coinciding pieces together. The hairs on his neck pickled and stood. Ed’s heart dropped right down into his feet.

“It’s literally under the town.” He muttered. “It’s the aqueducts. Those were where they were dumping the bodies and—holy shit. They weren’t using the tunnels for water at all.”

He heard a resonant _clip_ and the phone fizzled out for a moment.

“—ullmetal?” The older man’s voice came through in a the audio equivalent to a blur, hitching and fractured.

Ed started down at the phone, his eyes widening. “No, no, no…”

It sparked. The phone physically coughed out a fray of light and Ed jumped back, startled and still coming down from the adrenaline high of fresh childhood trauma.

Not that he was much of a part of childhood anymore.

“Colonel, you have to _listen_ —!”

_Snip._

Ed could taste his own fiery panic, rearing like stampeding bulls and all too gleeful in bowling him over. He jumped out of the window for the second time that night, whisking the drapes in an arc to cover the handprint and made a break for the MP station. 

Ed stumbled twice as he went whipped through the streets. Subtly and stealth were dropkicked into the wind in favour of speed.

Once again there was shaded figures teasing the edges of his vision. His set his jaw and kept his eyes trained forward. Ed refused to give the apparitions the dignity of acknowledgement. Just like anything else, attention would empower and encourage, not weaken.

That didn't seem to deter the shadows.

The blond spotted the station and poured on the speed, no regard for the doors he was about to ruin nor the blaring of sound it might cause. To his relief, there were lights on inside.

And to his dismay, the _lights were on._ Were those two working themselves into the ground or was there someone on night shifts Ed didn’t know about?

Better question: who the hell cares?

Ed rammed his shoulder into the doors, barreling through with a loud, resounding _bang_.

He ran straight for the room where there were voices coming from in soft hisses, hurrying past the other open doors. They’d all been locked tight when he'd been here before.

One held a single table and a chair. Another led down a steep stairwell. He ignored it and all but ripped the one with a yellow glow flooding through the cracks off of its hinges. It was a communications office.

A radio unit sat with headphones perched on the corner, along with a standard telephone equipped with an insultingly long cord that could’ve reached all the way to the entrance. Both of the young men Ed had been working alongside were there, facing one another looking troubled.

Ed caught the tail end of a sentence as he burst through the door. “—llers will be here soon—“

They jumped at the sound of Ed’s boot cracking the knob open, whirling to look at him. “Ed?”

“Oh thank _fuck_ ,” He breathed. Both of their eyebrows raised towards their hairlines. He launched into an explanation. “The Robinsons—those people that drowned—it wasn’t real. They didn’t, I mean, someone _killed_ them. I just found their bodies out near the woods and I really need to use your phone so I can get some backup for an investigation…”

They exchanged odd glances, fixing him with a star, looks of grim disappointment over their faces. Ed blinked. “Why’re you looking two me like I’m crazy?”

The shorter of the two sighed, his face dark. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”

The insects made their timely reappearance in Ed’s gut as the MPs started moving towards him, hands itching for their firearms and Ed’s mind screamed at him to _run right now._

The alchemist’s face morphed into a solid shield of confusion. “What’re you—“

_Crack._

Something hard collided with his skull, knocking him senseless. His vision blurred and grew very, very dark.

_Ow._

Ed dully registered his legs failing, folding beneath him and the taste of hot air in his throat. An ache started at the back of his head, where the tendons in his neck met his head and he choked for air.

Ed crumpled.

There were muffled voices around him but he couldn’t focus on any one in particular. They all mashed and cobbled together into a roaring whisper.

His head pulsed wickedly. He glared up through the spray of hair that had fallen across his face, looking towards at the babbling figures.

They zeroed in on him. Ed’s limbs twitched, but they refused to move. Which was _bad_ because they’d just taken a swing for his neck and nailed their target. It was a hotspot for pressure points, some vague, Izumi-inundated part of him murmured. Collections of nerves that trailed towards to damn near every part of his body and held them hostage.

Ed was functionally paralyzed for the next few minutes. 

He painstaking tried to force his arms to cooperate to no avail. His eyes fizzled in and out of focus, ears popping. There was the two MPs, looking down at him with chilling apathy, and two newcomers. 

_The older built like a smiling teapot and the young resembling a very, very sad scarecrow._

Marcel and Teller.

Ed coughed, his lungs catching on his ribs and making each breath he pulled in fiery and, frankly, really _hard_. Before Ed could manage more than curling his fist, the MPs knelt and pulled him upright.

Ed will still half limp and dizzy beyond belief. His stomach knotted, braiding into cursive words that spelled the phrase running wild in his thoughts: _I’m going to be sick_.

The blond let his head hang and they gripped his arms, elbows locking around his shoulders in such a way that the bone could be snapped backwards at a moments notice.

He managed to swallow down a wave of hysteria. “ _You_ ,” He exhaled venomously, voice light and feathery; it might blow away if the wind was strong enough. He’s been pulled to his knees, glowering through the spill of gold splayed over his eyes.

The world heaved itself back into focus, still quivering around the sides and rippling when something moved too quickly.

Teller looked down at him disapprovingly with Marcel standing at his side, a dull spade hanging loosely in his hand.

A realization slammed into Ed so hard that the room spun.

No, that wasn't right... withdraw for a moment, he needed to rephrase: the room spun _faster_ because for all the scurrying and chirps he’d heard out in the field, Ed couldn’t remember seeing a single mouse.

Birds don’t sing at night.

His eyes fixed on Marcel. “You… you were following me.” His voice was tight with breathlessness. All those footsteps and shadows he’d seen weren’t just his own overactive mind.

The sounds of animals had been a cover for all the noise being made by a clumsy pair of boots, each squeal mimicked perfectly. He felt like an idiot for having fallen for it. Marcel shook his head, looking mild as though he hadn’t just nearly caved Ed’s skull in.

“You didn’t give us much choice now, did you?” He said resolutely. “You were going to call for help.” He waved the spade mildly.

Ed glowered. “You cut the cord.” His head was still bowed, heavy with a throbbing pain and regular old exhaustion, but it didn’t stop him from spitting accusations. “You were in on it—on the Robinson’s deaths. You murdered them.” He snarled.

Teller strode forward and knelt in front of Ed. He still looked about as scary as a rabbit, but the gleam in his eyes screamed _danger_. “Well,” He started in a slow drawl, “we couldn’t very well let them leave. They would’ve told people what we were doing here to bring good fortune.”

Ed seethed. He opened his mouth to fire off as much malice as he could, but a hand clamped over his face before the words could leave his throat.

“Hush up.” The officer to his right said, calm and unbothered throughout. Teller nodded to the man politely before gazing down his nose at Ed.

“We’ve got rules here. They _broke_ the rules and faced the proper penalty. I, myself, would call it an honour anyways.”

Ed strained against the arms holding him in place, lips curling into a nasty scowl and rage in his eyes. The officer’s grip grew tense, like he was about to add an unsolicited joint to the younger’s arm.

So, Ed did what any sane person would do: he bit him.

As viciously as he could, Ed sank his teeth into the officer’s palm and reared back.

Tasting someone else's blood, he decided, was _way worse_ than he ever thought it could be.

The MP wheeled away with a cry, Ed felt a spike of dark satisfaction. “And _what_ ,” He spat, turning his glare to Teller, “the hell are you doing here for _good fortune?!_ ”

“We follow the rules. We follow tradition.” The older man replied calmly.

Ed tried to lunge forward, but was hauled back. “Did you think could could just get away with it?” He barked.

Teller had the gall to laugh, breezy and kind just like how he’d been on the day when Ed rolled into town. His soft appearance was betrayed by his strength and his hand darted out to grab Ed by the jaw. “Boy, we’ve been _getting away with it_ for forty years.”

The officer with the bloodied hand returned to his post at Ed’s side, pulling his shoulder back with a few unnecessarily scathing remarks.

In hindsight, it might not have been the greatest of choices for his self preservation toact like a slightly feral dog, but tact was never a trait Ed had bother to foster much anyways.

Ed damn near bit the asshole’s fingers off. “How many people have you _murdered_?”

He was rewarded with a backhand. Teller tutted like he was scolding a child, flexing his fingers. “You watch your tongue before I cut it out.” He threatened calmly. Ed pulled against the limbs restraining him, scowling. “And we’ve done no such thing. We return rule breakers to their home.”

Then a shrill ringing split the air.

Everyone stiffened, exchanging glances while Ed strained against them violently.

“Answer it.” Teller said pointedly. One of the officers ran off. His gaze turned back to Ed, darting between his son and the other MP. “Keep him quiet, if you don’t mind.”

Marcel gladly replaced the red-splattered officer. Ed blinked hard; his vision was still too bright, ringed with spots. The haze didn’t deter a frantic feeling from rising up and urging him to do something.

Hurried footsteps pounded across the floor. “It’s from East City.” The MP gasped. “They’re looking for him.” He jabbed a finger towards Ed, still starting at Teller, wide-eyed. Ed couldn’t help but smirk to himself.

Maybe he was a cocky, egotistical jerk and using Ed like a pawn on his political chessboard, but at least the Colonel was reliable.

Ask for one coin and he’d toss two dozen. Ed griped about Mustang’s tenancy to slack off, but nine times out of ten he’d come through.

Teller eyed Marcel. “You said you cut the cord.”

“I did! He must’ve made the call before I finished.” He gestured with the shovel weakly. "It's a bit dull."

The older man rounded on Ed, shaking his head. “Well now there’s a loose end…” He hummed to himself, bringing a hand to his chin. “Alright. Bring the phone here, I’ll take care of it.”

Ed coughed out a laugh. “ _Hah_. Good luck with that. You’re going up against Colonel Mustang. The goddamn _Flame Alchemist_.”

The older nodded thoughtfully. “So he’s a Colonel? I’ll keep that in mind.”

“What—“

He was cut off swiftly. “Didn’t I tell you to two to keep him quiet?” Teller sighed at the MPs, shaking his head. “I’ll need to concentrate. Usually there’s more time to prepare…”

Internally, Ed thought of every possible way to make noise, whether it be shouting at the top of his lungs or forcing the MPs to yell for him. If they tried the whole covering-his-mouth thing again Ed would happily take his owed pound of flesh, and even gagged he’d be able to alert the Colonel that something was wrong. It may stop the words from forming but it didn’t stop his voice from carrying out, loud and resounding.

Besides that, how would they explain his absence? Mustang was already trying to contact him and _knew_ that something nasty was going down. Ed’s smile held because these idiots didn’t stand a chance.

It faltered when cool, hard metal was pressed under his jaw.

“You know what happens if you act up, don’t you?” Marcel asked him, almost kindly. His voice was relaxed and not the least bit intimating.

Ed stared with threats of bloody faces and broken bones in his eyes. Marcel didn’t flinch, just silently poured on the pressure and let his finger rest horribly close to the trigger.

Ed was holding back a smug look, even as an agree little bruise started to flower under the muzzle.

Teller was handed the phone on that insultingly long wire. He cleared his throat into his hand and drew in a deep breath.

“Hey, Colonel.”

Ed’s mind—

— _reeled_.

A family tradition… they’d called it a _family tradition_ and Ed felt like an idiot as alarm spread its icy grasp across his skin, crawling with the force of ever member of an anthill and his heart climbed into his throat.

_ Fucking hell. _

Teller was using his voice; he was copying it. Every note, every inflection and even the word choice was filed down to a point.

Marcel could mimic animals. His father could mimic _people_.

Ed’s eyes grew wide and panicked, watching the exchange go down flawlessly. Even the little hiccups in his tone was there—where his syllables hitched on a too-young mouth and blended into each other every now and again.

He watched his own voice spill from Teller’s lips, trying to get focus on the conversation. Ed failed spectacularly and wound up with his jaw slack and having stilled, almost limp in Marcel and the MP’s hold.

He could vaguely hear Mustang’s voice, but the words were lost on him. He could pick out a few sentences, the tiny turns of phrase.

Ed could certainly recognize what was colouring Mustang’s voice so dark: unease, apprehension, and frustration.

The only reason Ed could hear it this clearly because it was so _rare_. Anytime Mustang used that particular flavour of a demanding tone, it meant something bad had happened. He’d learned from watching the reactions of Hawkeye and the rest, how they’d grow sharp and silent, that it was an omen to be wary of.

It had taken longer to pick up on the more important connotation. That voice meant he was _afraid_.

The moment Ed had realized what that anxious underpinning meant was when some poor idiot made the mistake of trying to use Ed as a hostage. Standard kidnapping, blah, blah, blah.

Ed had walked out his captor's front door, scoffing at their tacky hideout with exactly one scrape on his elbow and split knuckles. He had calmly walked back into the office to find a frenzied, nervous collection of officers and the dark-rimmed eyes of the Colonel himself. Ed was berated for a good few minutes, having been tossed into Mustang’s own office with what he assumed was anger rolling off the older man in waves.

Ten minutes of lecturing, Ed frowning and flicking paper projectiles into the waste bin, and then Mustang had dropped down into his chair. “You are going to be the death of me.” He had said under his breath in the same, half-hissing voice.

At the time it was surprising.

Now it felt heavy and oppressive.

Instead of a warning for an upcoming storm, his voice had become thunder itself.

Ed’s heart struck his sternum with the force of a sledgehammer, beating against his chest. His eyes stung with horror, rage, fear and ferocity all at once. He forced the cottony muffle in his ears to dissipate. Ed listened.

Because that’s all he could do with the tip of a gun brushing his skin.

“ _What happened?_ ” Mustang said.

“ _The line went dead_.” Mustang said.

“ _You told me someone was murdered_.” Mustang said.

Teller played it off easily like the compulsive liar that he was.

He said he was messing with him.

Ed felt sick.

He told Mustang it had been a _joke_.

And apparently, Mustang believed him. Either that or he was doing an incredibly job of hiding his suspicion and Ed was praying to any god that hadn’t forsaken him yet that it was the latter.

Ed stared the whole time and shivered, watching the aging, round-faced man talk as though he’d reached a hand right down Ed’s throat, closed a fist around his vocal cords and _pulled_.

“You might want to come here, actually.” Teller said, sending a cruel wink to Ed. His stomach lurched. “I think it’d be best if you helped sort things out.”

“ _What did you do, Fullmetal?_ ” Mustang asked.

“I don’t think I can fix this on my own, is all.” Teller responded, breathing the words like some ghastly ventriloquist. “Maybe come alone. They’d get freaked out if you brought a team or whatever.”

Ed felt incredibly dizzy. Hearing things spat from his own mouth but… but it wasn’t _him_. It was wrong and unsettling, the spoken vibrations teasing at his skin, raising gooseflesh. He tried to suppress the shudders because he refused them the satisfactions of seeing him squirm.

But god this was just _wrong_.

“ _Where are you_?” Mustang asked.

Ed wanted scream.

 _I’m here_.

_I’m right here. Don’t come alone._

_C’mon, Colonel. You’re better than that. Please don’t fall for this. They’ll kill use both if you come alone._

Teller bore a cheerful grin. “Blackwell Springs, of course.”

In was such a terrific perversion of talent that Ed’s stomach rolled once again. And Mustang didn’t seem to notice.

It was unimportant; juvenile to the point of angering, but the obliviousness almost hurt. The fact that someone he’d known and trusted for years now couldn’t tell the difference between a fake and the real thing stung in an insignificant way that Ed squashed down.

He’d be lying is he said part of the insult wasn’t stemmed in fear. Because though it mildly offensive that Mustang was drifting into a fallacy, it was the danger being posed that made the misconception _burn_. Worse yet, it might end with both of them buried in scattered parts around this stupid little town that sat in the middle of _nowhere_.

For what? Good fortune.

_ You're better than that. _

The conversation pattered to a close.

“When’ll you be here?” Teller asked. Ed cringed, biting the inside of his cheek and reopening the split from earlier that night.

Mustang’s voice buzzed through, still sounding a little off. “ _A day._ ”

Because of course the stubborn, impulsive idiot didn’t have the patience to get on a train. No, no, no. He’d come barrelling through in a car and dooming them twice as fast.

The line flicked to dead static.

Teller seemed pleased with himself, but the expression melted away as he turned to frown down at Ed. He coughed into his hand, voices lowering to his regular, full pitch. “Now then,” he tilted his head, lips twisting, “what’ll we do with him?”

“We could take him out to the hills?” An officer suggested. Ed’s chest seized, shoulders coiling tensely. It wasn’t hard to imagine what _the hills_ meant: lead through his throat or something worse. He didn’t give the nagging idea another thought because it was too much to think about.

Even going a quarter-way to consideration made his head light.

_(They'd dragged Mr. Robinson out of the pits. You'll be next. How long can you hold your breath?)_

_Stop it._

The older man waved the idea off. “No, we might need a bit of leverage later. In case the _Colonel_ tries those flames our guest mentioned.” He tapped his chin in thought like he was picking between deserts and not deciding whether or not to add another body to his surely high-piled count.

A very young body. Ed always imaged he’d bite it earlier than most, but _here_ … _like_ _this_ …

Forty years was a long time. The corpses would’ve accumulated.

“Take him down through the tunnels. You know the spot. That cellar below my house. It has a strong door, locks from the outside. Oh, and mind his hands, I know about the little—“ Teller slapped his palms together, his eyebrows upturned and smile bright. “— _trick_ he can do. Get the arm off, if you can.”

The blood drained from his face.

_They’re going to take my arm._

The pistol was lowered from his jaw, but Ed couldn’t even feel relieved. They were going to rob him of his single advantage.

Marcel was replaced by the officer handling the phone and they started to drag him to the door with the gapping stairwell.

_Think. Be smart about this._

He breathed and tried to dig his heels into the flooring, stalling them.

Marcel hissed something into his father’s ear. Teller nodded and they started to retreat towards the front of the station. The hands on his arms loosened by a fracture and Ed grabbed the opportunity, wrenching his automail out of the hold and cleanly breaking the taller MP’s nose with the heel of his hand.

He tumbled back with a howl. Ed shoved the other to the ground with his shoulder, getting his feet properly under him as the man went sprawling.

Ed whirled, leaping forward and driving his elbow directly into Teller’s throat. A perfectly solid strike.

It… didn’t have the intended effect. The man let out a choked gasp, but instead of stumbling back or loosing his footing, his arm lashed out and grabbed Ed’s wrist. The alchemist’s eyes widened and he realized that he was _screwed_.

 _"Damn brat._ " He muttered.

Beneath the round edges, Teller was _apparently_ wicked strong. He threw Ed like he weighed nothing and sent him crashing against the floor.

All the air was sucked from his lungs.

This time, though, Ed at least had a moment to prepare for the blow, if only a microsecond.

Any fighter worth their salt knew how to fall properly, and Ed’s own worth was leaning towards his weight in saffron. The breath was still knocked out of him, but not enough to keep him down longer than a moment.

He tried to scramble up, but there were already arms and knees pressing him down before he could stand, flattening him to the grainy hardwood. Ed jerked to the side in an attempt to squirm out of their hold but a friendly, jarring knock to the back of his neck made his limbs go stiff for a moment.

That moment gave them the advantage. 

They kept him in place— _barely_ —held down on his stomach. Marcel had joined the fray and was looking down at Ed without a hint of remorse, only frustration. Like his was somehow _his_ fault for not being cool with _literal murder._

Teller approached him coldly, every inch of friendliness drained away. Ed might’ve felt sacred if he wasn’t so pissed off. The man reached to his back pocket.

A faint memory tugged at Ed’s mind. Back when he first arrived…

He blanched. Hadn’t Teller mentioned something about keeping a lasso on him?

The anger made wait for panicked slivers prickling through his skin. Ed tried to wrestle his way too freedom again to no avail.

Ed took a valiant swing at head butting the older man in the teeth and missed only by an inch. Teller didn’t bother to kneel this time, his just gave Ed an admonishing look. He snarled in turn.

The man sighed wearily, pity flashing through his eyes. What he pulled from his pocket was a small handkerchief rather than a rope for strangling.

Teller dabbed at his brow with a heavy sigh, gesturing to the three keeping him pinned. They seemed to understand what he was asking. “I wish we didn’t have to do this, really. But you certainly are _tenacious_.”

Ed sneered. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Teller shook his head. “We let the land do the work for us. Keeps the family’s hands clean.”

“Fuck you.”

The prick carried on like he hadn’t heard Ed at all. “We just can’t have you getting out to ruin everything. You understand, don’t you, Ed?” Hands wrapped around his right left, a foot stamped on the back of his knee. Ed glared through it.

“A pity we can’t just break the metal one, but I doubt that’d keep you down, would it…” He shook his head. Understanding dawned in a blinding flash.

The hands tightened around his ankle and Ed blanched. “Wait,”

“If you’d just done what asked, you could've gone peacefully. You remember, hum? We told you not to dig.” Teller mused, pacing back and forth. Ed’s heart squeezed violently.

“Wait, don’t—“

They wrenched his foot to the side. There was a loud, sickly snap. The pain ate him alive.

Ed blacked out.

* * *

Something was wrong.

Roy could practically taste it. Ed had been snippy with the trademark touches of anger making it feel familiar.

But it was a far cry from the panicked, rushed explanations no more than twenty minutes earlier. If before Roy been confused, now he was restless; on edge and wondering what the hell had happened between the first and second conversation.

There’d been something tight in the kid’s words, like he was swallowing back a fit of coughs or holding his breath at the end of each sentence. It was just a little too strained for Roy to dismiss it.

The steady agitation from the past few days was coming to a head, towering high and ready to topple down over his head.

He went about his home, briskly putting himself together and combing the sleep-induced rats nest from his hair with his hands. He had said a day, but the foul urging of something wicked was sinking it’s teeth into him.

Roy could discard some traffic laws to get there sooner. If he was called on the reckless driving, well, what military police would dare challenge a Colonel?

Besides all of that, though...

Despite the hair splitting; the one-eighty in Ed’s behaviour; the wafting of dark fogs through the phone, there was one thing Roy couldn’t shake.

All the rest could be chalked up to his instincts going haywire, the genuine, frustrating worry he had come to associate with the Elrics spiking because they’d been separated. He could justify that and pretend his mind wasn’t ablaze with suspicion—Hughes would have slapped him and said he was just concerned, but what did he know?

No, the part that was clinging to his skin like a second skin was that Ed had asked him to help. Not just asked, actually, the kid _insisted_ that he make the trip out the Blackwell Springs.

There was a first for everything, he supposed, but the flowering wreath of paranoia had him second guessing that notion.

It was heavy, lording over him like a puppet master, all the jerking of strings disguised as instinct.

It had confused him right off the bat; Ed simply doesn’t ask for help. Even if support is being practically forced upon him, the kid would vehemently reject it. His pride wouldn’t allow it.

And now he’d done so twice in less than an hour.

Again, came that looping thought.

_You’re gonna be the death of me, kid._

There was a tense, furled up feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Something was wrong.

Roy was going to find out what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I haven't been this nervous about a chapter... ever? Yeah, ever. See, these are based in things that scare me personally but I'm unsure if anyone else will find it unsettling or not so. Ahah I'm stressed.   
> Hopefully I'm worrying about nothing and this is still entertaining for y'all!  
> There's some beautiful cover art for this fic though! check it out [here](https://levhach.tumblr.com/post/631168552426143744/ive-been-obsessed-with-liathgray-s-fics).  
> God, I'm gonna go scream until my anxiety goes away. 
> 
> 2-5-14-5-1-20-8 20-8-5 6-12-15-15-18-2-15-1-18-4-19


	6. Jackals and Willets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Description of injuries. Horror elements. Slight claustrophobia and nyctophobia.

Ed traipsed his way back to the land of the living twice before he managed to actually stay awake.

The first was when he’d been hit across the face by the smell of bitter, almost vinegary sludge drilling rigs up his nose, the stench causing a vivid pain between his eyes. He was barely aware of what was happening, still drowning in the sour atmosphere and caught in the hazy throes of half-consciousness.

He sucked in a sharp breath and coughed, the feeling viciously tearing at his throat. Ed could feel dense, clammy hands clamped to his flesh arm. Muttering filled his ear and his temple was treated to a brutal cuff. 

He slumped back into the dizzying embrace of unwilling sleep, cradled by white hot twist of pain and drenched with a feverish sweat.

It felt like hours before he was granted the displeasure of waking up again. He opened his eye blearily and found something smoke-like tinging his vision.

It might’ve been real, but more likely it was just the blur of his own lashes clustered too close for him to pull into focus or fully look past. He blinked hard in the dim space while his... _everything_ started to ache.

He couldn’t see past a small circular glow, the light pressed close to the ground and casting long shadows. It was coming from a lantern, he realized. It was burning low, the wick only a few inches long and far too small to bring any heat.

Heat that he desperately needed at the moment. A tremor pushed up through his ribs, squeezing at his chest. Ed’s breathing was uneven, full of gasping double takes. A breath rattled him from head to toe.

Last time Ed had opened his eyes, the audio-input had been clustered up with papery voices, but now he heard the lashing of leather.

Something smooth and superficially glossy was being wound around his wrists with the intensity of a sailor readying for a storm, both limbs held behind him, the backs of his hands welded together. Even through the blurry wakefulness, it _hurt_.

Ed was coaxed back down into a silent, icy pool of sleep before he could try to protest. The undertow was strong and whisked him off into dreamless handshakes with a coma. His head was beating with a self made pulse, like someone throwing their fists into a punching bag. Each blow echoed, building into a crescendo so monstrous that it migrated down his neck and wove between his spinal column and constricted, pulled mercilessly taut,

Both of those first times, there had been other people present.

Enemies, yes, but living people nonetheless and with them there had come light.

They'd dragged him through tunnels and filched his mobility but at the very least it wasn't so bleak.

Now he was waking up in total, suffocating darkness, in a room that reeked of formaldehyde. Ed kept still for a moment to take stock of the stone floors and chill that rose up through it, bleeding the warmth right out of him. His couldn’t move his hands.

His arms, actually. They’d been trusted up all the way to his elbows and it was already making an ache start up between his shoulder blades. He waited until the rippling in his vision subsided before trying to sit up and _goddamn_ was the effort monumental.

He was mortified to find his movements to be so lethargic. It was like a heavy layer of lead was coating his body, weighing him down.

The blond managed to get himself upright and feel along the ground for the telltale sloping of a wall.

There wasn’t one within reach. He tried to shuffle back, but was crudely reminded that his foot was busted to hell. Ed put not more than a half pound of pressure on the limb when an inhumanly hot burst of pain racked across him. It felt like a metal rod had run him through, red with heat and melting the surrounding skin into a gurgling fluid.

It hadn't, of course, but that didn't stop the gasp that was halfway to being a gag, nor the succeeding flares of pure, unadulterated heat.

He fell back for a moment, breathing through the sensations of bone grinding against bone from beneath his own flesh.

Ed could feel shards poking through the tissue, choking on nothing as a strangled yell broke out. He once again pushed himself upright, gritting his teeth, willing his leg to dampen its vicious, clawing spikes of _hurt_. It faded to something more manageable after some odd number of shuddering inhales.

“Okay,” He said aloud, “no moving that foot, then.”

Something shifted again and his stomach rolled. Ed swallowed and cautiously crawled backward using his metal leg like a propellent, his bound hands to balance, still looking for a wall and making mental notes as he went.

The memories were clear in some part, frayed in others. He paused, blinking into the shadows. “Oh, _wait_.”

He hunched forward, scowling into the apathetic, frigid void. “Dammit.”

It was said that talking to yourself was the first sign of insanity, but Ed thought that was stupid. Because right now his own voice, lone and bouncing off the stone, was the only thing grounding him to reality.

He seethed as though the target of his words was there to hear him.

“Idiot. Stupid. Moron with an ego the size of the moon. Colonel, I _swear to god_ —“ Ed strung out a slew of insults and knotted swears into frilly bows to be lobbed directed into Mustang’s dumbass face. If he really shows up without backup they’d both be royally screwed.

He let out a groan, half pained and half blisteringly frustrated, then continued the trek to find a goddamn _wall_.

It was… agonizing? Irritating? Exhausting? A mix of all three?

Agon-rit-austing? Unimportant.

The point was it _sucked_ and the sparks poking holes through Ed’s ankle were starting to accumulate. He grumbled miserably. “Bunch of rude ass… they could’ve at _least_ left me a light.”

He was fully aware of how ridiculous the sentiment was. Calling them rude was basically a compliment after attacking and imprisoning him, but the petty griping made him feel less alone.

Less afraid.

Also, it really was dark.

Ed almost jumped when his fingers actually did manage to find something, but it wasn’t what he’d been looking for. Instead of a hard corner, he felt something soft, layers bundled together.

It felt like cloth. He let his hands wander further, brushing across the material, tracing out the seams and hemming. Shirts, pants, jackets, skirts and even a few thick, corse coats that somehow felt familiar.

Ed was baffled. He continued to run his hands over the clothing though, finding that it stretched upwards by a good few feet.

Some of the articles felt new, still stiff from starch, yet to be broken in by the owners. Others were brittle and worn down; threadbare like they’d been collecting dust for a long while. He tried to pull one of the jackets loose, as shivers were still coursing through his frame harshly, but his efforts ground to a halt after only a few moments.

Ed stilled, his mouth curling downwards into a look of confusion and disgust.

His nose wrinkled, drinking in the damp air for a moment before a sour stench filed through his lungs. It was faint, but potent all the same and terribly distinct. Ed would’ve scrambled away if his foot wasn’t still hopped up on the hellfires of agony and discomfort.

Instead he dropped the cuff he’d latched onto and tried to calm his thoughts as a nasty taste bloomed outward.

Plain, dirty rot. It came rolling up over him in a wave, drowning the preservatives that had been dousing the room beforehand.

It belatedly occurred to him that this miniature mountain was likely the belongings stripped from those Teller and whoever else was involved had sent to an early grave.

Not even that much. They’d carved their victims to pieces and didn’t bother recording their lives.

The clothes had been down here so long that they’d started to rot at the bottom, mildew surely bleeding between the woven threads to dissolve it into ribbons. Ed inhaled, steeling himself, then reached again, digging his hands into the mock donation pile and searching for something.

Anything, really.

He could feel the wet, slimy texture of mold squelching between his fingers and shuddered, the sensation feeling wrong and nasty in every way. The smell floated upwards, growing stronger. He kept pressing on, a hunch settling at the forefront of his mind.

If they’d taken their belongings, it stands to reason they wouldn’t have emptied their pockets, right? There had to be something useful buried in there somewhere, tucked away in a spare fold, or sewn into the lining.

A knife, ideally. A bottle opener would work fine too.

Anything with an edge that could saw through the precious length of rope binding his hands behind him. He’d take some exceptionally sharp buttons if that’s all he could find.

The feeling of decaying fabric crumbling under his touch was gross, but not nearly as bad at the maggot infested body parts he’d found shoved into the dirt.

After ten or so minutes of dirtying his hands with nothing but a flimsy idea to go off of, Ed was ready to retreat and think of some kind of strategy to get out, starting with, of course, finding a wall so he could subsequently get to the door.

If there even was one.

He shook himself, bringing the reminder that they didn’t have an alchemist and wouldn’t be able to steal up the stone like that.

Ed sighed and started to pull his hands from where they were buried. As he did, a box clattered loose from some miscellaneous pocket with a wooden rattle.

A smile crept over his face.

Maybe luck wasn’t the absentee jerk he’d assumed. 

Ed skimmed the ground and picked up the box, awkwardly held between his fingers with what little wiggle room he had. He shook it lightly, the smile growing to a outright wolfish grin.

A box of matches.

It sounded full, and based on the hard exterior, it hadn’t been soaked with sludge or dampened.

“Well,” He muttered, “guess they left me some light after all.”

It took longer than he’d admit, but Ed managed to pick up the box. Sort of.

He painstakingly bent over and trapped the matches between his shoulder and chin, and sat back up, much to the dismay of his… everything.

A knife-edge of pain scraped up his shin and he swayed where he sat. “Don’t drop the… don’t drop it.” He said to himself.

It remained slightly embarrassing that he was talking to himself. And maybe it was a sign of insanity, but really, that was _fine_ because Ed had never made claims to be anything close to sane.

He successfully managed to not drop his cargo—hooray! Where’s his goddamn medal?—and fished a single match out with his teeth.

Ed kept the box sandwiched between his shoulder and cheek, throwing caution where it belonged in a dumpster and not particularly caring if having sparks this close to his face was a recipe for burns. His own commanding officer was a walking fire hazard anyways, in comparison this was far safer.

Matches, at least, didn’t have their own temper, nor a mission to make Ed long for a metal bat.

Ed jerked his head to the side, flicking the matched against the checkered white phosphorous. It didn’t light.

He tried again.

It didn’t light.

Ed tried to find any residual mildew or water lining the box, but came up empty handed. Proverbially empty handed, of course.

The old match was gracious enough to stick a sliver at the side of his mouth and Ed would’ve kicked something if he could.

He took a deep breath, eyes shut to the overwhelming darkness and numb to the quite—so damn quiet that he could hear his own heart as it thrummed, even when it had slowed. He didn’t want to know what was going on inside his chest. It was unsettling to hear the faint pulsing on each beat.

Ed set his jaw stubbornly and dragged the match across the ignition material with a triumphant _scritch_ and the stick blazed to life.

It left a streaking sear just below his cheekbone, dragging out a muffled, involuntary hiss.

Ed turned away from where the mound of fabric sat and spat the match onto the ground, the little twig tumbling a few inches under a shower of sparks.

The switch from total darkness to firelight was startling enough that he had to squint through the glow.

To his left, there was the discarded, stolen belongings and beyond that a grimy looking corner. It was a start, at least, but there was no way in hell he’d condemn himself to disease by touching that particular length of brick.

Visibility stretched on for only another few feet before dissolving back into a void. Ed huffed and slowly made his way to the edge of the light, thankful that these matches were longer than most. It burned for about a minute, then fizzled away into the darkness.

Ed stuck another match between his teeth and struck it for all he was worth.

Which, if the whole _saffron_ comparison still stood, meant he was hovering at around ten million some-odd cenz. In short, the match flickered to a flame right off the bat and he launched it across the open expanse just as the first one was whittled into a dead wick.

Impeccable timing and good aim made for a nightmarish scene, brought to life before him by the light of the match.

He’d found a wall alright. Ed almost wished he hadn’t.

As promised, Ed had been tossed into a cellar with earthen walls and just enough space to house a series of wine racks. There were none, though.

Instead, wooden shelves were drilled into the wall, starting at the ceiling and running parallel to one another halfway to the floor. They hung about four feet above Ed’s head, even standing he would only be able to lightly poke at the bottom of the lowest platform.

Lining the shelves were jars varied in size and shape. All of them were filled with a greasy looking, yellow liquid, and each contained a chunk of flesh.

The way the cellar had reeked of chemicals suddenly made sense.

Ed stared, slack jawed and alarmed at the chilling, perverted mockery of a normal cellar.

None of it was distinct, just a random pound or so jammed into the jars and left to ferment. He felt sick.

Ed let out a shaky breath and moved closer.

They were all labeled carefully, with names and dates for each, the taped on paper becoming more and more frayed the farther along he read.

There were _so many_. And the earliest one came from forty years ago.

Unlike the rest, it housed more than one sliver of meat. This one had three.

The handwriting was childish, scrawled out as though it had been drawn with a finger instead of a writing utensil. It was all too similar to the tar-fuelled blotchiness that had come from _someone else’s_ pen. Which was so fucking rich.

Because right there on the thin, age-singed paper, there sat a name.

_T-E-L—_

The matched blew out.

Ed sat there, sore and overwhelmed in utter darkness. The box dropped down, temporarily forgotten while Ed silently suffered through the revelation. There were pieces of a puzzle scattered around him, but it seemed as though they’d all come from different sets. All of the clues being laid out were mismatched and it was driving him insane.

Not to mention how downright disturbing this all was.

He did all he could to detach himself but it just wasn't possible. Not after staring into the disease-laden eyes of Mr. Robinson or seen the ring resting upon a broken, dismembered hand.

Not after seeing worms and flies eat their fill.

The fact that people were being slaughtered was reason enough the send goosebumps creeping up his back. Ed snapped back to the present.

It took a moment, but he managed to hunt down the box he’d pilfered, once again holding it precariously with what little free space he had between his hands. Carefully, Ed tipped the contents into his flesh hand, slipping the flammable twigs back into their container one by one.

There were eight in total.

Ed winced at his careless wasting of the first two and dreaded the upcoming time he’d have to spend without being able to see so much as where the ceiling or walls stood. Which he supposed wouldn’t pose much of an issue since his foot was screaming at him to stay still and not move an inch lest he craved hot curls of broken bones pressing against his flesh.

That was going to be a problem in the long run. If he could get his hands loose, maybe he’d be able to scrounge together a splint and blow half of Blackwell Springs to kingdom come.

_You can't do that. It's not fair to everyone else. They don't know._

Ed was, in short, miserable.

He didn’t have to worry about knocking into anything, which, well, _small blessings_ , but mobility had been thoroughly picked away. He could theoretically make his way around with a horrid limp and rolling some loaded dice on nerve damage, or maybe just hop on one foot like the distinguished State Alchemist that he was.

But that would put travel speed at exactly ten knots slower than a snail.

Outrunning them was off the table as an escape option. So was out-lasting or out-punching them, as was generously demonstrated by Teller’s shockingly monstrous strength.

Ed was left with one option: outsmart.

Which was great, in all honestly, because they’d handed him a good measure of raw materials and there was a hamster in the back of his head, sprinting furiously to turn the gears. It slowly became to churn out a smattering or ideas.

Like a game of chess, he’d have to play this slow and careful; using everything at his disposal. Ed felt determination turning his face hard, fluttering up from his chest and tucking all the fear and nausea into a jar (hah, a jar) with _Do Not Touch_ in bright red. The same shade as the flags he feels stupid for not having seen.

No, that wasn’t right. He’d seen them, but he just hadn’t acted.

Oh, the _woes_ of being complacent. Good thing Ed had top grades in the art of petty vengeance; he’d wreck havoc in every way he could.

But for now, Ed was stuck until he could get his hands free.

He was also sitting in a room filled with pickled flesh, memorialized to the slaughtered civilians of the countryside and stuffed with belongings from beyond the graves.

Perhaps if he could knock down one of the glass containers, as nasty is it would be, the glass could act like his own personal hacksaw and Ed could try cutting through the leather rope.

But no, that would be testing fate a little too intensely. The cold was numbing the limb halfway up his forearm and Ed sincerely didn’t want to earn a slice across his wrist in a imprudent attempt towards freedom only the bleed into unconsciousness before he reached ground level.

In a rather pointless motion, he glanced around.

Surprise! He couldn’t see a thing. Sight was for suckers anyways, he had four other perfectly functional senses to use.

_So he’d fucking use them._

* * *

Aside from the morbid, flesh filled imitation of a peach cannery—horrible way to think of it, but the absurd comparison eased Ed’s nerves—there was still the pile of miry clothes.

Ed had dug through the rest of the pockets, only finding what felt like a storm-shattered umbrella. It had the rough texture of rust, refusing to open or close. Ed set it aside and considered how reckless it would be to use it in concert with a few strips of cloth to form a brace.

He decided against it within about ten seconds of the idea entering his mind as the loud warnings of lockjaw came a-blaring through like the singing of sirens. Tasting the air revealed nothing but what he already knew and the urge to spit out the dust that hugged his tongue.

Touch? Well, personally Ed wasn’t too fond of black mold so he carefully shuffled towards the formaldehyde treasury, holding his breath because the was oxygen growing denser.

Ed leaned his shoulder against the dilapidated bricks once he reached them, slumping against the wall and flexing his fingers. The circulation was already being slowly severed, so Ed took to moving them in short intervals.

It would be pretty inconvenient if his hand refused to move if he ever got out.

( _When_. Not if, _when._ )

The grainy stone reached out and pulled strands of hair free from his malformed braid. It could be worse, he supposed. There could be blood in it. Or, like, tar.

God, that would be a bitch to get out.

He shuffled along the wall, ears peeled and searching for a crease or some new material. Again, he reminded himself that this place wasn’t sealed shut by alchemy and that somewhere, there was a door, he was just moving slower than usual.

A dark voice slithered up from the worst, most pessimistic, disturbed part of his psyche.

_Unless they buried you._

The whisper made him cringe.

Thank god for stubborn optimism, with it’s loaded gun scaring off the ugly thoughts. He reached the first corner and made quick work of his lip, gnawing on it as he used to do when he was younger and still figuring out the intricacies of alchemy.

With a book in hand, he would pick at the little callouses on his palm and chew the inside of his cheek. Might as well have been a fantasy at this point. Ed tried to distract himself from the looming possibility that he was going to eventually run out of breathable air and dizziness would ferry his soul away from his body. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine with how unreasonably cold it was in the cellar.

Even being underground and damp, this was ridiculous.

Two of those incongruous puzzle pieces fit together with an almost audible snap.

A vent.

There had to be a vent pumping in the chilled air. There _had_ to be something filtering fresh oxygen, or the ground where he sat would’ve grown at least a little warmer. Ed started to move faster, rising to a kneel and inching along the barricade, listening for the telltale hissing of a grated opening. It didn’t even need to be that big.

Ed wouldn’t need to go through it. Not when there had to be a perfectly good door just begging for him to kick it open.

His main goal now was for someone else to open it for him.

Locked from the outside, Teller had said. Which means if Ed could somehow coax someone inside and stir up some cover, _maybe_ he could knock them silly just long enough to fit the lock back into place. But he’d need to plan this out first.

Play on your own terms, with your own rules. Bring your own damn board if you have to. _That’s_ how Ed would be able to win this stupid, twisted game.

Smooth metal brushed against his knuckles. Ed grinning wickedly. It wouldn’t be a stretch to presume it connected to the house above.

They’d made the mistake of saying that this was below their home. His fingertips wenttracing the shuttered grate. It was only the length of height of his hand and twice as wide, but that would be enough. He’d be able to figure a way to smoke one of them out—

“Ed?”

The voice startled him so bad he tried to jump to his feet, cleaving through the still and deathly silent space with the force of a pickaxe. And then he registers _whose_ voice it was. For a moment, Ed sat there in shock with eyes as wide as the moon.

“Colonel?”

* * *

“ _Oh. He’s not here_.”

“He’s not?”

“ _Did you need something, Lieutenant Colonel? Or was this a social call?_ ”

“I just had a quick question. Have you heard from him at all?”

“ _No but... this happens every once in a while. When the work starts to pile up, the Colonel tends to get sick. Odd little trend, but what is there to do_.”

“Odd... yeah.”

“ _He should be back tomorrow. I can take a message if you need me to_.”

“Ah, no, its fine. Like you said, this happens every once in a while. I bet he’s just slacking off.”

“ _You wouldn’t be wrong. Are you sure about that message?_ ”

“Yeah, I’m sure. It was just... never mind. Hey, Hawkeye, tell him to give me a shout if he ever gets into the office today, yeah?”

“ _Of course._ ”

“Thank you.”

* * *

The world ground to a halt, the floor falling out from under him. Surprise throttled his coherency and Ed’s heart began to pound. Mustang’s voice breathed back. “Yeah, Ed. What’d you get yourself into this time?”

His mind stuttered, mouth open but no sound coming out.

The voice was filtering through the wall across the room. “You in there?”

Ed didn’t respond. He was too busy drowning in his own thoughts. “I’ll get the door open. Give me a minute.”

Faintly, he heard the clicking of a lock, metallic _tick-tick-tick_ pattering along after it. Something heavy came loose from the door and Ed’s blood drained away in perfect time. He pressed himself against the wall.

“Nice try.” He spat. “I’m not falling for that.”

Ed heard a mocking, airy scoff from behind the door. “You wound me, Ed!”

His ears were caught up in a roar, blood rushing with anger. “Yeah and another thing. He doesn’t call me that.”

The person coughed harshly, clearing their throat with a hum. The door cracked open by a sliver and a warm light sprayed through, hitting the ground in a way that would’ve been pleasant if Ed wasn’t trapped with no access to alchemy and a thoroughly mutilated ankle.

“My mistake.” The person said. _Marcel_ said. “I’m still working on the inflections and whatnot.”

He strolled through the door—wooden, probably oak and it looked heavy as hell—with a lantern in hand.

Ed took a savoury moment to imagine punching him between the eyes. The young man was smiling, sickly sweet and gazing at Ed with a vindictive look on his face. The blond hid his box of matches in his back pocket.

“What do you want?” He ground out. Marcel tilted his head, somehow looking like he didn’t expect the hostile tone. The incredulity faded into indifference and he shrugged, pushing the door shut via leaning his weight against it.

“Well I’m _supposed_ to be trying to get your arm off,” He said mildly.

Ed tensed and inched back. Marcel had the audacity to snicker, waving the young alchemist off. It almost felt condescending—the way he treated Ed’s fear like his own personal puppet show to be tugged and dragged in whichever direction he found most entertaining. “I can’t figure that complicated machinery out. ’Sides, you’re not going anywhere on that.” He nodded to the Ed’s mangled limb. “Though I guess I could _try,_ if I must _._ ”

Marcel’s threatening drawl made a shiver run rampant up his back.

The younger’s face tangled, growing more volatile by the second. The dark aura blooming outwards from Marcel was making him long to give into anger; he could let his temper run loose along with his mouth and give the crazed mimic a verbal beating for the ages.

But Ed would rather avoid the _literal_ beating that might very well follow. He bit back insults and scowled. “So what, then?” He asked again. "Why are you here?"

The man set his lantern on the ground, casting shadows from any bump and abrasion daring to mark the dirt and stone. His knees bent, back sliding down the door to fall into a crosslegged position. Ed tried to edge away from the bright halo of light, as though coming into contact with it for too long would do something awful.

Light held no physically properties; it couldn’t be infected or poisoned, but that didn’t stop Ed from feeling like its touch was toxic.

The painted smile dropped away, Marcel’s eyes dulling just a little. “I want practice.”

Ed’s guard was pushed aside for a split second, baffled by the words. His face must’ve said it too, because the older man swayed a little, almost melodically. “Practice.” Ed repeated.

“It’s a family tradition, you know. I need to get better if I want to pass it down.”

“Pass down your cheap party trick, sure.” Ed spat. Marcel brought a hand to his chest, looking mockingly hurt.

“It’s how we keep the memory alive! They’re all around us, you know. They live on in name—” He swept a hand towards the barely-lit catacomb of jars. “—and in voice.” He tapped his index finger against his sternum, right where his voice box would be. It was helpful for Ed, that way he’d know how to tear the stupid thing out.

“You’re _crazy_.” The blond growled.

A bark of laughter was torn loose from his lips. “I’m not, pinky promise.” From across the floor he held out his hand, little finger extended. There was a disquieting, animalistic instinct from deep in the younger to bite the damn thing off. Marcel dropped the act and hunched forward, fiddling with the the circular, screw-like switch at the base of the lamp. He twisted it and the flame grew brighter, gaunter, and splaying overlarge, dim hazes over his face.

It made him look demonic and the bastard knew it. Ed could tell from the way his hands drummed insistently and traced the glass, loving and vile.

“I’m a performer, see. I need practice. And who better than you?”

Ed tried to quiet the angry, frightened screams that struggled to break loose. He failed, marginally. “Fuck you.”

Marcel didn’t react, barely giving the malevolent hissing so much as a cursory acknowledgement. The pads of his fingers just danced over the light source, rounding the glasswork in an oddly graceful way.

A brief moment of quiet allowed Ed to think. About this. About Marcel and his behaviour: he’d unclasped the lock with fluid ease, reciting his lines like they practiced.

Like… _like he’d done this before_.

Logic and self preservation retreated, making way for fiery, blistering anger.

“No you... you _didn't.._ ,” His voice shook. Marcel didn’t look at him, but he stood, grabbing the lantern. His footsteps were heavy, thudding loud enough that just drove nails all the way up through Ed’s feet, piecing his ribs and hammered into his temple.

“You used them for your _practice_.” Marcel rapidly closed the space between them and Ed could only seethe. “They were innocent people and—and you _terrorized_ them for no reason.”

He stopped just a foot away from Ed, the torch swinging with a low squeak. Ed glared up defiantly. Marcel looked down at him, his face distorted by a mix of a smirk and a sneer. “Don’t act so high and mighty, Ed.” He leered. “You’re about to be one of them! It’s a blessing, you know. Most would glorify the opportunity to be where you are.”

“You’re killing people.” Was all he could shoot back.

Marcel spread his hands like he was showing off the proverbial blood they were splattered with. “We’re returning them home! It’s our job to uphold the custom.”

Ed didn’t want to dignify his words with a response. A reaction would only encourage his mania, but Ed had notoriously bad habit of letting the timer in his brain count all the way down to zero and triggering a tectonic explosion. He worked furiously to mitigate it, but still letting himself pour disgust and hate into his eyes.

Marcel caught onto the dangerous flashing and his hands lowered to his sides with a disappointed sigh. “I don’t take any pleasure in upsetting people.” He said and Ed might’ve believed the sincerity in his tone had he not already see firsthand just how much Marcel could bend his own vocal chords.

Ed grit his teeth. “Yeah, somehow I doubt that.”

“Awfully rude tonight, aren’t we?” The older tutted softly. Ed’s blood boiled in time with a new flood of questions.

 _Tonight?_ Was it the same night or had he been too busy in static dreams to notice the day passing by. How long had he even been awake?!

“I wonder what it’d be like to hear that man from the phone right about now. He sounded worried, don’t you think?”

“ _Bite me_.” Ed snarled.

“What was his name… You said it was Colonel Mustang, wasn’t it? The uh,” Marcel tapped his chin, taking a half step forward. “Fire guy.” He settled on.

Ed’s train of though—wherever the hell it might’ve been going on its rage-fuelled tour of ways to punch people—was completely derailed. His lungs screamed to a stop. 

“Really, I’d like to know. How do you think it’ll feel?” Marcel smiled, crouching down in front of the blond so that they were face to face.

Ed considered spitting but settled for harsh words. “Ask the cyanide I’m about to put into you food.”

_Don’t flinch. Don’t give him anything._

Marcel’s hand fidgeted against the knob, making the flame expand and shrink in rapid, jerking intervals. His voice was so condescending that Ed physically coiled up in preparation for a punch. Had his hands not been held hostage, he would’ve given Marcel a free nose job. If they’d stop shaking, too, that would be helpful. He did his best to mask the fear and stared the creep in, but his stomach was already plummeting.

“And what was it that he called you?” His smile broadened, the once friendly expression turning grotesque in the candlelight with long shadows painted onto the crevices, making him look hollow. It lit up his teeth and made him more intimidating than Ed could’ve ever thought possible. The lights dimmed. “Oh thats right!” Marcel cocked his head.

Ed shrank back.

_Don’t—_

The lantern flicked off, sending darkness scurrying to reclaim its territory. Marcel’s lips took on the voice once again that didn’t belong to him.

“ _Fullmetal.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ed's having a bad day.  
> On the bright side, there's more art guys!!! Gosh, I am not exaggerating when I say I cry whenever I see this... like, the fact that people will take the time to draw such cool and beautiful things?? Amazing.  
> Go give em some love: [one](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/631553667073441792/last-one-for-tonight-very-sorry-if-im-disturbing) and [two](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/631547095065690112/here-we-go-againnnnn-im-reading-another-amazing).
> 
> 6-18-15-13 20-8-5 8-15-18-19-5-19 13-15-21-20-8


	7. Red Rover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Phycological trauma and gun use.

Fifteen hours.

That’s how long it took to get to Blackwell Springs.

It was one part impressive, one part illegal and ten parts _too slow._ There was an entrance in the woods that was meant to lead vehicles into town, as the main gates were more a formality for those using trains. It was dark.

Unsettlingly dark, actually. The sun was completely blocked out, the only light that filtered through the brambles was muted with a sickly green tinge. The wind whistled a rather persistent tune. Roy only made it about halfway through the woods before potholes started to spring up and multiple at an alarming rate.

Then the car just… stopped.

With a frustrated growl he kicked the door open. “Of all the times…” He hissed.

Though, really, he should’ve seen it coming. Cars aren’t exactly meant to be used continuously for half a day at full throttle. It was a surprise that it had been the spark plug that had shorted out, though. Roy would’ve assumed that a fan had gotten caught and caused the engine to overheat.

Odd, but out of his control unless some fresh replaces happened to fall from the sky. So he got out and walked through the light of a setting sun, coughing orange blooms over the land in a way he might have appreciated for a moment is his nerves hadn’t been cleanly severed since picking up the phone.

Roy kicked at the dirt as he went, childishly frustrated by the setback and only barely restraining himself from breaking into a run. Because that would look silly, would’t it?

Running when nothing had happened, to someone he’d talked to less than a day before. Ed had been perfectly okay and snippy as usual.

( _He didn’t insult you once. That’s not right. Don’t kid yourself_.)

Ed was fine, just knee deep in some mess that Roy was going to have to smooth out. That’s how it worked. Always, always, always.

Yet anxiety was practically wringing him out.

Roy came upon a more proper looking road, pathed with stones and curving across the land towards a cluster of low buildings. There were a few people around, all of them shooting him looks and whispering to one another. Roy ignored their gazes, plowing past the gossiping droves. He marched towards the rather large sign declaring the location of the inn and internally promised himself that he wouldn’t burn the place down. Yet.

No matter what Ed had told him over the phone, Roy wanted to know why the line had gone dead. Head high, he loudly shoved his way through the front doors into the humble foyer. The resounding bang of the door made the man sitting at the front desk jump. Roy didn’t hesitant to stride over and plant both hands on the desk surface and glare down apathetically. It was a well crafted mask, in his professional opinion. It certainly worked in frightening the receptionist.

“What room is Edward Elric staying in?” He asked cooly.

The man gaped for a moment, falling over his words. “W-we’re not allowed to give that information out, uh, legally—“

“I’m his commanding officer.” Roy said, giving the man a smile covered in unspoken threats. “ _Legally_ , I’m entitled to this information.”

Silver tongues came in handy when you need to bend the truth. Or laws, in the case. The clerk chewed his lip and then made a show of looking through a flurry of papers, some loose, some bound by metal rings.

“Well he’s out at the moment, but he’s in room thirteen,” The man replied. A moment later his eyes went wide. “But you can’t—!”

“I’ll only be a moment.” Roy assured, his tone clipped. He turned on his heel and started down the corridor. The clerk scrambled after him, leaving a small tornado of papers in his wake.

“I can’t let you go in, it’s against the rules.”

“Rules.” Roy mused, his footsteps never faltering. “Tell me, are these rules subject to the law?”

He stammered. “Well _yes_ , they are.”

“Then this shouldn’t be a problem. I only need to check one thing, it won’t take more than a few minutes.”

Roy’s halted at the door, stamped with the two key letters. He looked sharply to the man, his face creased with age and clothes rumpled from chasing after him.

He fiddled with a pen that had been stuck behind his ear. He looked nervous, and for the first time it occurred to Roy that it might not be because of him. He ironed out the commanding tone, replacing it with something a little more empathetic, though the impatience was still written into Roy’s face.

“Is something wrong?” He asked.

The clerk mumbled something incomprehensible, his thumbs manically flicking the pen around his knuckles like it was a miniature windmill. “It’s unlucky.” He said softly.

Roy’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

The man shook his head. “Nothing, nothing. You can go ahead just—“ His head whipped from side to side, like he expected to find someone listening in to their conversation or peering around the corner. “—don’t be too long. It’s the… the rules.” He pressed a key into the Colonel’s hand.

“Right.” Roy said slowly, watching the man scurry back down the hallway, vanishing around the corner. His behaviour firmly set Roy on edge, and all the hard work he’d put into containing his paranoia went flying out the window.

He looked back to the door, palm hovering over the knob when the key rested just above the lock. For a long moment, he hesitated.

Despite everything he’d heard from Hughes, all the pleading from his friend to put aside his precious ego, part of him still insisted that it was nothing and that he was overreacting. Another screamed out that there was something terribly _off_. They were waging violent warfare on one another and Roy’s head was the battleground.

The two sides beat each other to and for, the brawling feeling as though it lasted hours, all of it condensed into a half minute debate that ended with Roy jutting out his chin and twisting the handle open.

At first glance, he looked exactly as he expected. A suitcase jammed in the corner and papers lined up on a desk, along with a few old looking books with dozens of paper marks hanging off the pages, surely filled with annotations.

One page catch his attention for a moment. In a run on sentence drawn in familiar handwriting there was a theory, speckled with diagrams and asides, detailing how one might pull ether up from the ground without draining themselves of too much energy. It was an inconclusive endeavour, apparently. Nothing else seemed remarkable upon a mild scan.

A second glance revealed a few… inconsistencies.

He let the door click shut behind him, scanning the space. The window caught his eye, the curtains drawn shut but the sill still visibly poking out. Roy kneeled down and ran a finger over the ledge, finding that there was a fine later of dirt spread across the wood. Beneath the drapes, the glass had a faint, smeared handprint. Ed’s, presumably.

How had he gotten covered in dirt in the first place? Better question: Why would he have needed to climb through the window at all?

Roy’s eyes were drawn to the lock a moment later. He blinked, his brow furrowing. “Transmutation marks…?”

He stood, padding across the room to the side table housing a pristine looking telephone.

_Creak._

He stopped.

Roy shifted his weight, rocking lightly over the floorboards.

_Cre-ee-ak._

They were horribly uneven, Roy spared a look and saw the nails were bent out of shape, sticking up out of the wood. It was splattered around the edges, chips having been torn out in some places. Roy frowned and jammed the tip of his shoe between the boards, prying them upwards, wincing at the loud snaps of wood.

He knelt, peering into the little hole he’d created and feeling his chest constrict with the slight lurching of his lungs. Though it was covered in dirt and shiny black patches, he could recognize Ed’s overdramatic red coat with ease.

A memory nagged at him, back during his first call with the kid. When he’d been frantically trying to explain something, Roy had heard something eerily close to the breaking wood. He reached down and retrieved the muddled stretch of cloth, examining it.

There were a few tears, but mostly it was just immeasurably dirty. Half of the coat was blanketed in earthen materials and… ink?

Whatever.

Roy’s eyes darted to the window where there still sat thin streaks of soil, then back to the cloth.

As anticipated, they matched. Roy sighed, folding the coat and returning it to where he’d found it. He didn’t know Ed’s reasoning for stashing it away—right now it was looking like he’d snuck out for whatever reason, as though he couldn’t just go out the front—nor did he really want to hang onto it. The thing was filthy, after all, and in his haste Roy may or may not have pretty much entirely forgot to bring anything with him.

His gloves were adhered to his person, of course, but aside from that and his now stranded car… he was empty handed. Not that it mattered all that much now.

He still needed to actually find his subordinate and get some answers about all of this.

Roy certainly wouldn’t mind speaking with the MPs either about all the screwed up files, though Hughes’ warning still rang out. It was likely that this had been going on far before any officers were placed here and they might not know that there are any inconsistencies at all. Which would turn this into a nightmare of paperwork and police, making the town overcrowded and the citizens antsy.

The most concerning this was by far that family who’d been lost to an imaginative bog.

Their bodies hadn’t been recovered and Roy was starting to fear this could be a four decade coverup for some kind of murder. The big question still remained in all its ugly, looming glory: why?

Why were there false records; why hasn’t there been any crime in ages; why did someone build up a cover for the death and _why_ , for fucks sake, had his hands started to shake?

A clipped knock brought him from his thoughts. “Sir?” The receptionist asked through the door. Roy could see the shadows of his feet shuffling through the crack. “Pardon me, are you just about finished…?” He asked cautiously.

Roy pressed the wood back into place as quietly as he could, throwing his gaze around the inn room one last time, straining to find any other details. It was the phone that made him do a double take. He’d seen it already, spit-shined and crisp like it was drowned in polish, but that was the problem.

The evidence was everywhere, that whatever had happened when Ed slipped through the window, it had result in a dirt bath that he’d made no effort to clean up. Yet the phone was clean.

“Just one moment,” He called back absently.

The cradle had no scratches, along with the receiver and rotary dial. His eyes narrowed, hands trailing towards the base where the car was wound up tightly into a bundle before aimlessly sliding through a hole in the wall. Roy followed it, the cable pinched between two fingers.

He gave it a hard tug.

It went taut, shaking with the force but not budging from its plaster home. He tried again and got the same results and his frown deepened.

Roy stood and swept out of the room. “I-is everything alright?” The clerk asked, managing to hold the wall and stay on Roy’s heels.

“Just fine.” He replied smoothly. He gave a brief thanks and pushed back out onto the rapidly dimming streets. There were even less people now, which meant that Roy’s pride had dwindled. Less prying eyes would make this easier, really. Because he wasn’t worrying about appearances and he could simply run.

He had and finished up the last of his patience on that receptionist and those fifteen hours were hanging heavily over his head.

A lot could happen in that timeframe.

Roy whipped around corners, almost skidding at times and sped through the lamp-speckled roads. Luckily the trip to the archives a few days prior had given him a peak at a map and subsequently the big green stamp where the plicate station was, though even if it didn’t, this place was small enough for him to find it without too much trouble.

It was a bit bothersome how the streets tended to meander and stroll instead of the grids Roy had grown so used to, but the blocks were a quarter the size those that rested in East City.

The pale blue sign above the doors was far too friendly and… probably illegal, on some level. Regulations and codes were ridged, though not much care went into enforcing them. Not his department anyways.

Roy walked inside with a mask of authority worn over his face so snugly you’d think it was custom made.

There were two young men sitting hunched just in view, half hidden by a wall that jutted out to covered the space. They were muttering to one another, hissing out unintelligible things that Roy didn’t care to listen in on.

He walked past the from desk and folded his arm. “Excuse me.” Roy say lowly, glaring down at them both.

The officers jumped and—

Dark hair. For a moment surprise overtook him. He could’ve _sworn_ those cadets were redheads…

The commanding expression and tone were back a half second later. “Are you two the officers assigned to this station?”

The young men both stood, hands raised in some of the sloppiest attempts at a salute Roy had every seen. “Yes, uh, sir. We are.”

They looked like they had stage fright. As in, not quite nervous but something close enough. It was the specific kind that Roy remembered seeing on the faces of those taking the State Alchemist exam, their hands flattened against their sides and backs ridged like they’ve been fitted with tension rods instead of a spinal cord. “You’re Colonel Mustang?” They asked.

“I am.” Roy told them, tone sharp. “And you’re wasting my time.”

Instead of the intimidated wince Roy had come to expect, two pairs of eyes darted to meet and then split away, like they were speaking silently.

It was a bit rude, honestly, and he could easily be able to reprimand the strange secrecy but Roy didn’t have the time or mental endurance to spare that kind of breath.

Roy scowled at them.

“Do you know where the Fullmetal Alchemist is?” It wasn’t a question, more of a demand. They exchanged more wary looks. Roy glowered at them with every inch of his frustration poured into it. “As far as I can tell, this was the last place he called from. Do you know where he is or not?”

The shorter of the two stepped forward and Roy noticed the other had a swath of bandages over his nose. His anxiety took a moment to free-fall, Roy only barely managed to catch himself before the emotion was openly display. He smoothed his expression and gestured to the man who’d stepped forward.

“He’s at the old homestead up on Aurn Way.”

“Why?” Roy raised an eyebrow and the taller officer jumped in, scrambling to explain, his voice lilting around vowel with his ruined nose.

“He got invited. That’s—it’s an old family in the town. We don’t get much accomplished folk like Ed—Mr. Elric.” He spoke like the conversation was a minefield, dodging snd backtracking constantly. “There was a spat and he went to talk things out this morning…?”

He glances to his colleague for confirmation. The other officer shrugged.

It was feeding his confusion something fierce.

“Would you like us to escort you?”

“No,”

“Are you sure.”

Roy scowled. “Positive.”

“It would be no trouble for us.” His tone grew pushy.

The alchemist grumbled inwardly before throwing on a thin—paper thin, it was a bit pathetic in retrospect—mask of gratitude. “I appreciate the offer, but really, there’s no need.”

“Really we insist! It would be,” The MP gave him a welcoming smile that spreads itself just a little too wide. “ _imprudent_ not to. Besides, the road gets dark. It’s easy to get lost over that way.”

* * *

It was really dark.

And Mustang... _Marcel_ …

(Because thats who it is. It has to be. It has to be)

Wouldn’t stop.

He didn’t come close. His steps treaded lightly and circled the room like he knew ever curve and cover. He probably did.

He didn’t lay a finger on Ed.

He just kept talking.

Taunting, shouting, threatening, sneering, mocking, and muttering. He carried each word from joy to hate like a magician holding a wand and thrashing it mindlessly. There was doubt sewn to every twitch of his tongue and _fucking hell—_

There wasn’t a damn thing the younger could do but grit his teeth and screw his eyes shut. His head hurt. His leg hurt. His arms hurt.

It didn’t stop or even slow, not even as the voice recounted something grisly from a battlefield, or asked Ed how he imagined burning to death would be.

He knew it was for intimidation—trying to break him down and he knew that none of it was real. But it was working.

It kept right on going, ringing out as he explained calmly what he might do if he had a torch at the ready. It never ended. The lantern flashed and left the burn of an afterimage. 

_Ed didn't flinch._

The voice was awfully loud and persistent, though. Blanketed in malice and a dark kind of glee. He asked Ed what he thought metal through his skull would feel like; what it would look like; what it would taste like. 

Ed stared into the darkness and seethed, his body made up of one part rage and ninety-nine parts terror.

Something metal clicked. Ed stiffened. The voice seemed to grin, stretching gleefully and all too real. It sounded exactly as it was supposed to and _god_ , that was just so _wrong_.

“ _Do you—_ “

* * *

It was uncomfortable.

The journey through the town was dragged out needlessly and several times Roy had come close to snapping at the MPs to hurry up. They tried to make conversation in turn.

“The Flame Alchemist, huh?”

Roy bit back a scathing remark. “That’s the title, yes.”

These two acted like a combination between warmongering interrogators and overeager kids. The switches were jarring and the behaviour baffling, to put it lightly. Both meek and predatory, though Roy wouldn’t claim them to be all that threatening, the continued questions and big gestures made him want to take off in a sprint and loose them in the the nomadic rustic impression of a cityscape. But that would be unprofessional; it would be rude and could honestly get him and Ed in worse trouble.

Assuming that Ed was still trying to choke down his pride and apologize for whatever stupid thing he’d done to offend the people of Blackwell Springs.

“How does it work?” One questioned. Roy was sorely tempted to show him in the worst of ways; in excruciating detail how his flame alchemy worked. Somehow, he didn’t.

“It’s complicated.” He settled on instead. His expression was tight, clear as day. So why these guys wouldn’t back off, Roy had no idea.

They didn’t flinch when he tried to get rid of them. Even pulling rank didn’t seem to deter them one iota. They were president little things, he’d give them that much.

“Does it need that little circle on your glove or just, like, a spark?” Roy mutely removed the gloves and jammed them into his pocket. It momentarily shut the officer up.

He never thought anyone could push his buttons more throughly than Ed. But here he was. They kept on, the pathway growing more ragged and worn. The only light came torches welded onto posts/ There was a teeny foot stretch between each one, leaving gapping lengths of shadows. Each time he stepped off the glow-touched dirt and into the lightless spaces, Roy almost his foot to fall all the way through. But that would be ridiculous.

In the midst of their mundane inquiries, Roy tried to ask about the aqueducts Ed had told him about. They deflected each shot he took, saying it would be best if they waiting to talk about everything.

“They were missing from our records.” He told them irritably.

One of the MPs cackled. “That’s probably because they don’t exist.”

“I was told they did.”

The younger man’s voice grew lower, more serious. “They don’t exist.”

Roy frowned and turned his gaze back towards the trail. They ducked out of the torchlight again and something reached for him.

With his paranoia already spiked to the heavens like a punchbowl at an unsupervised party and nerves whittled down to nothing, Roy felt himself jolt involuntarily. He spun around, hand raising into a practiced position.

“Woah!” The taller MP—the one whose nose was honestly painful to look at and _oh shit had Ed done that_ —stumbled back. “I was just stretching.”

He glared hard and continued on.

“So about those gloves.” One started up curiously.

Roy sighed. “Didn’t you already ask about that?”

“Well yeah. I just wanted to know if you brought a backup pair.”

“Not on me, no.”

“Oh,” The man said with a nod. “You better take good care of those ones, then.”

It was consistently tense even as they approached the front door. Instead of knocking, the two just soundlessly opened the door and strolled inside. Roy’s eyebrow climbed towards his hairline, but he stayed quiet, following them through the entrance into what felt like a well-lived place.

There were about a million and one photos adorning the walls, tarnished by age. There were no names or dates to indicate just how old they were, but they covered the walls so thoroughly the painted plaster only barely peeked through.

It felt homey.

Normally, it would’ve been a pleasant thing, but considering he was here on business and driven by a nail-biting sense of distress, the warmth only felt wrong. Apparently the MPs had been here before because they navigated the halls with ease, strictly rounding corners until they reached a wide set of redwood doors.

_Something’s wrong._

He did everything he could to press down the feeling as the twoofficers opened the door to reveal what looked like trophy room, but it was almost empty of any real trophies. All the mounted plaques were pinned up with nothing to present, with the acceptation of cattle skins splayed over the walls and a few scarce sets of polished antlers. There was a rifle on the wall, hanging above a dead fireplace. None of the stuffed, garish head Roy would’ve expected though, much to his relief. Having extra eyes watching him, dead or not, would make this far worse.

In one of the many overlarge chairs, there sat a middle aged man, perhaps in his mid-fifties, if Roy was to guess, with a face so mild it could be used to advertise a bakery. In his hands there was a slim, pale rod. A horn, likely from a bull or something in the same family.

The man looked up from his work, setting down a wicked looking knife and dust plastered rag and smiling welcomingly. “Evening, gentlemen!” He rumbled. “Colonel Mustang, we’ve been expecting you!”

He rose from his seat while the MPs stationed themselves at either side of the door. Roy couldn’t even muster up some diplomacy for the exchange.

The Colonel responded in a flat, apathetic tone. “Have you now.”

The man—the heir of this place, most likely. Hadn’t those MPs called it a homestead?—nodded enthusiastically, gesturing“Very much so.” His hand made a sweeping motion around the room, grin widening so far that Roy could see the cracks in his lips. “Please, take a seat.”

Roy slapped gratitude over his displeasure and prepared himself for a game of table-tennis with lies as the ball and wit as the paddle. He didn’t have room to hesitate or slip up. Roy wanted to ease the writhing worms that still threaded in and out of his heart, making the rest of him threaten to shut down.

To do that, he’d need to pull some information out without it becoming an interrogation.

Don’t antagonize, don’t threaten, just agree and push on.

Roy steeled himself with a breath, then made his expression lighten. “And you are..?” He asked cooly.

“My name’s Alistair. It’s a pleasure.”

“Likewise.”

 _Alistair_ took up his seat once again, picking up the knife and curve of bone, turning the blade like it was a toy. Roy followed suit, stiffly settled in a chair parallel to the older man.

“Now,” He started, knife resting lazily on the horn, “if you don’t mind I’d like to know a few things. I understand that you were contacted by ah, Mr. Elric?”

“I was.”

Alistair hummed to himself. His eyes were trained on his hands, watching the tool he held as it was dragged in long strokes. “How many times did you two speak?” He asked

Roy’s hand’s folded tightly, hiding the slight tremor that refused to leave him in peace. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’d just like to clear the air.” He waved the knife flippantly. “How up to speed on the situation you are and such. Just so I’m not repeating myself.”

“Right.” He replied slowly. Roy’s gaze wandered through the room, up the towering walls and noting the distinct lack of windows. It was strange, especially for a room that housed a fireplace. It had logs laid in a metal cradle, looking slick with someone flammable with flint stones set to the side for ignition.

“And did you have someone here with you?” Alistair inquired, before rushing to tack on a sheepish explanation. “Not that I’d mind, I would just hate for them to be, say, waiting outside or something when they could join the discussion—“

“No one else is here.” Roy was growing increasingly aggravated by the way everyone seemed to be dancing around the reason he was even there. They avoided Ed altogether and were, bewilderingly, trying to make small talk. He tried to remain polite regardless. “I don’t want to be rude but let’s cut to the chase: what happened.”

“Er, well…” His stopped mid-stroke and eyed Roy. “Mr. Elric had been spreading a bit of a rumour about there being a body out in the fields. Did he mention that to you?”

“Vaguely.”

Alistair sighed solemnly. Roy gave him points form his commitment. “Then you’ll understand that we were all a bit distressed. Upset, even, by this. And it was such an ugly, cruel joke as well.”

“I would understand that.” The older man nodded, his face serious but still graced with a little grin. He opened his mouth to respond, but Roy cut him prematurely. “ _If_ it were true.”

Alistair leaned back, head tilted. “I beg your pardon.”

“Despite his age, I know Fullmetal understands the weight of death better than most.”

“Is that so,”

“Yes, _it is_.” He retorted sharply. “So I’ll ask you again: what happened.”

Alistair chuckled. “Well you’re awful bold, aren’t you.”

“You’re avoiding the question.”

The older man shrugged. “He was sticking his nose where I didn’t belong.” He brought his hand to his head, tapping his temple lightly. “Family business.”

The worms began to squirm where they’d dug into his heart, making Roy falter. “I was told he was here.”  
Alistair brushed off the question, ignoring the clean demand, treating it like a casual conversation and not a verbal sparring match with one of the highest officers in the east. Maybe he was underestimating the alchemist because he was younger, but either way it was a roadblock on his journey for _one goddamn clear answer_. “Oh, yes. Of course he was.”

“He _was_?” Roy questioned.

“I’m quite certain he returned to his hotel not long ago. Didn’t you see him on your way over?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Pity.”

Roy sent a glance back to the MPs, the lights creating deep shadows from their strict, ramrod still forms. His eyes darted to the fireplace, still unlit and cleaner than most were ought to be, then to the knife being clutched in Alistair’s hand.

The room smelled musty, as was to be expected in such a broken in, historic home, but there was something else. Something he was far too familiar with and it pulled the scene into sharp focus. Like he’d been looking through frosted glass beforehand, it snapped to clarity.

Why were the MPs guarding the door? They shouldn’t be doing that. Not from the inside anyways. And why would he need to speak with this man at all? Any semblance of chiefdoms had been snuffled out ages ago, so unless this was some kind of spiritual or religious leader—which would’ve been mentioned somewhere, but then again the records were already trashed—Roy couldn’t fathom why he’d need to talk to anyone besides the MPs.

Who he had _known_. Who should have red hair and be freckled to the moon and back. Both these men were graced with inked in locks, not orange and auburn.

Where was Ed. Why isn’t he here and how could he have _possibly_ slipped past them?

_He never left._

His eyes slide back to Alistair, his blade held aloft. Roy wondered if there’d even been anything’s blood on it. _Anyone’s_ blood. _Ed’s—_

_Something’s wrong._

He dropped the tact, all pretences of a negotiation abandoned. Roy’s voice damn near dropped into a growl. “Why does it smell like smoke in here.”  
Alistair’s lips lifted in a chuckle. “Well there is a fire pit, you know. The scent tends to linger.”  
The younger man bit the inside of his cheek, trying to control the sudden flurry of anger. It shocked him in its intensity. “It smells like chemicals.” He ground out.

“Strange.”

Roy schooled his expression, glaring at the other man with his lips twisting, accusations waiting to fly from his mouth. Miraculously, Roy managed to swallow them back. Because he’s not supposed to antagonize. No matter what. That’s how it worked.

“What was the family business that my subordinate was _sticking his nose_ into?”

“Traditions and such. Private matters.” Alistair told him, moving to stand. Roy tensed, but the man simply circled the chair and gazed down at the chopped wood that’d been tossed into the pit of brick and mortar.

Roy’s hands twitched towards his pocket. It would be _so easy_ to take out his gloves and used unsavoury tactics. It would be _so easy_ to shove a miniature bomb into the middle of the room and threaten to let it go off if they kept on lying to his face. “I… I see.” Roy said. “ _Private matters._ ”

Alistair’s head bobbled cheerily and panic was draping itself over the back of his neck in a thick, incasing plaster. It made his shoulders grow tense, his stomach coil. Roy’s heart lodged into in his throat and he could feel those fucking worms flailing, their slick little heads brushing against the back of his mouth.

Roy couldn’t tell if it was just the terrible series of epiphanies or if he was genuinely growing sick. His face hardened. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Alistair.” His hand reached up and skimmed along the mantle. One eye latched onto Roy, only half visible from where it was glancing through the shallow split of his eyelid. “Why?”

“And your last name?” He asked lowly.

The man’s fingers floated higher, running over the varnished wood of the rifle. Roy had to remind himself it was decorative before hie leaped out of his seat.

“It’s Teller.”

Roy felt something heavy drop in his stomach. Something shrill and panicked was screaming at him to get the hell out. Roy held his ground.

“Teller,” He repeated, “as in the family that drowned, about forty years back?”

Alistair sighed wearily, sounding horribly sincere. “Not you too Colonel. And here I thought we could have you go quietly.”

It was like he’d been slapped.

Shock held him hostage, despite every instinct begging him to get up and run or broil this whole room into an ashy grave.

But he was stuck in place with his eyes wide and jaw locked shut.

“Guess you and Ed really are alike, hum? You had one persistent boy there, Colonel.”

The room was suddenly hot, rifle with a blaze fuelled by fear alone. It was all wrong.

 _Had._ He used the word had and—and _had_ means past tense. No… _no—_

His finger hovered over the trigger, head bowed down as his body tilted to one side, staring Roy in the eye from under his raised arm. Alistair smiled. “He did the _same thing_ when he figured out something was wrong.”

His body unlocked and ten things happened at once, the speed of the world ramped so forcefully it felt as though he was moving through a layer of molten lead and his nerves were so overloaded with heat that they froze over instead.

Alistair grabbed hold of the gun, the MPs leaped forwards and tried to take hold of his arms. A buckshot set the fireplace ablaze, Roy slammed the heel of his hand into one of the MP’s faces and heard the joyous sound of his nose rebreeding beneath Roy’s violent touch.

The officer fell back, crashing against the wall. The other raced to help him to his feet. Roy reached into his pocket, his hand closing around the worn material that could spew firecrackers in an instant.

A loud shot blew through his ears before his could even slip them on.

He blinked down at the hand that had been holding the gloves a split second earlier. “Huh,” Alistair’s voice called out in surprise, “I’m usually such a terrible shot.”

He turned in time to see the older man rip back the bolt. An empty cartridge fell with a deafening click and the barrel stared him down.

He probably should’ve ducked, but anger wrenched control from logical and reasoning. Roy surged forward just as Alistair squeezed the trigger, grabbing the weapon by the shaft and pointing it upwards. It blasted a hole through the ceiling and the force made Roy rock back on his heels before regaining balance.

He tried to wrestle the gun away but was met with a surprising amount of strength. Rage or adrenaline or maybe even fear kicked him into high gear and Roy took a cheap shot to Alistair’s hand. There was the crunch of his fingers fracturing and the man’s grip loosened just enough that Roy could pull away the firearm and reverse its aim.

Alistair put up his hands, the smirk never lessened, nor did the gleam in his eye.

“That friend of yours—Hughes, was it? He certainly dug deep into our history. I hear he’s a _Lieutenant Colonel_. And that woman on your team… she’s got a rather distinct voice.”

The alchemist scowled. “How—“

“You ought to be more careful with your phone lines.” The older man tapped a finger against his ear. “It’s easy to listen in. Easy to redirect the calls. What a shame he’ll have to get the awful news of your’s and the boy’s passing come sunrise.”

Roy’s hand was already brushing the trigger, the firearm practically begging him to blow the man’s head apart. Not yet, though. Not until he got some answers.

Maybe then Roy could take pause and conveniently miss an artery but still lodge a piece of lead in Alistair’s leg. He wouldn’t bleed out, but it would hurt plenty. Or maybe he would, both options worked just fine and it would be _easy_.

The MPs were still out of sight, but based on the low groan of wood, Roy guessed they’d fled. The _military police_. Hah. Imposters, more like it.

“Awfully uncivil of you, _Colonel_.” Alistair drawled.

Roy glowered back and kept the rifle raised, pointed for the older. He was only a foot or so away, so there’s no way he’d miss. Even as an average shot, Roy knew this was one he’d get a bullseye on. So what if it was out of pure spite? A shot is a shot.

“Who are you, really?” Roy asked in a grave tone.

He could feel the cold numbness working up from his feet, sewing through the soles, across his shins and knees. It wound up his person, indifferent, frigid and boarding on painful. Like a wave of pins and needles being slid under his flesh.

Alistair cocked his head to one side. “Well that’s the one thing I _didn’t_ lie about.”

Ed hadn’t been joking. Of course he hand’t! Roy knew that from the word go. Why had he been so willing to believe the lies being fed to him at all was…

_You didn’t want it to be true._

_You didn’t want all that fear and worry to mean something._

_It’s easier to tell yourself it wasn’t serious, isn’t that right soldier?_

Which meant there was a body, somewhere out in the very fields he’d traipsed through.

Alistair was snickering, casting a gentle, destructive look at the younger man. “Come now, you know what it really smells like in here.” He had the courage—or lack of forethought—to lean forward, even with the threat of a bullet trained on his mouth. “You should know, anyways. You’d know it from _war_. Think about it.”

Roy grit his teeth and there was a sickly, sour taste in his mouth because he _did_ know. It was the stench of embalming liquids that coroners would used to salt the earth in death and sin.

They’d doused the fallen in chemicals so that their families, now with only a corpse to love, could at least see them off before they started to decay. It tasted like an empty bottle of rum and burned his nose. It took the skin off bones almost as effectively as sandstorms.

He blinked hard to clear the memory. “Why are you doing this? What the hell are you even doing?!”

His demeanour was open, swaying drunkenly and leering at Roy. “Family business.”

“Family fucking _business_.”

“I’m only taking our pound of flesh. A shame it’ll have metal in it…”

Roy’s lips curled into a wolfish snarl. He gripped the rifle until his knuckles turned bleach white.

“ _Where’s Fullmetal?_ ”

“Look down, Colonel. He’s there.” Though his hands were still semi-raised, palms flat out to face Roy, his finger pointed down, but eyes didn’t follow their lead.

Roy hadn’t felt this particular flavour of anger in ages. Not since—hell, he couldn’t even remember specifics. Just a smug grin and piles of rubble. This highly curated, specific brand of fear and frustration shaken into a cocktail and left to age. Fester, really.

It made him feel dark and low, his lungs coiled with a cold swoop of horror that brought Roy down, hanging close to the worst parts of himself.

The parts that wouldn’t really mind seeing thick blood and grey matter sloshed in thick ribbons over the mantle. The part that was perfectly content with the image of a beaten in set of ribs and a head rammed into the fire pit. Maybe it would even be cathartic.

_Find out where Ed is first. Then you can beat his skull in._

Roy didn’t see the point in hiding away the nasty little voice. It roamed free instead. He was tempted to believe it; tempted to get the scraps he needed and then plant lead through his eyes. Fire made for quite the show but metal casing and gunpowders was gracefully effective. It could paint a bright picture of gore, when angled correctly, done up in shades of pink and crimson. Like a setting sun but tainted with iron.

God, it would be so damn easy to finish this right now and leave the MPs in chains. Or dead.

Probably dead.

Yeah…

Another, more toothless and careful side of him called that he wouldn’t have the time. That the act of violence would be pointless and incriminating.

He was torn between venting his white hot rage and quelling the worry. Because no matter what Alistair said, he refused to believe Ed was _anything_ other than rearing to go. No matter how damning the words sounded.

He operated on cold, hard evidence and didn’t dare give the alternative more than a glance because it might swallow him whole.

“What did you do?” Roy growled.

“Only what we’re supposed to.”

His voice was rapidly rising to a shout. “What the hell were you _supposed to_ do?”

Alistair was so fucking calm not made his blood race and roar in his ears. “Follow tradition, of course.”

Roy hefted the gun, squarely pointing the muzzle at the older man’s forehead, right between the eyes, and glaring. “If you keep talking in circles I’m gonna get a lot more liberal with this.”

“Mighty frightened, truly, I am.” There was a note of teasing in his tone, the consonants pulled like putty into stringy hums.

“I’ll ask you one more time. Where is Fullmetal.”

“Don’t you get it?” The man beamed. “He’s already in the ground.”

_Already in the…_

Roy fumed, his teeth grinding to hold back a hurricane of bloody, bullet-ridden curses and threats. There was a long, wiry smile splitting the mans cheeks in two. It could’ve been the slit throat of a murder victim, but that surely would’ve been less gruesome.

The worst part was that the grin hadn’t changed. It didn’t suddenly grow horns and morph into a demon, it wasn’t even tinted by something wrong. He was genuinely offering up a friendly look as though nothing was truly wrong. Alistair looked like he was about to reply, when a loud, high sound shattered the air.

A scream, flung up from below, reverberating through the vents and laced with pain. It came from below, sending a jolt through his frame.

The stupid worms ate away at his throat and lungs until the bottom half dropped down into his stomach.

Roy’s eyes widened and his grip loosened.

_That was Ed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The two hours I spent watching Deep Dive and MWM so I could post this at midnight for y'all... brainworms are rioting tonight!  
> Anyways we've been graced with more art beep boop: [1](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/632329902802255872/really-quick-fanart-for-liathgrays-fic-blackwell) [2](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/632275960960630784/liathgray-just-ever-get-bored-so-you-just-make-a) [3](https://spectra-bear.tumblr.com/post/632264478435819520/liathgray) [4](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/632163283556843520/two-more-sketchy-pages-one-a-comic-page-and-the) [5](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/632150529131397120/this-part-gave-me-chills-and-i-love-it-nothing-i)
> 
> 19-16-1-18-11 16-12-21-7-19 25-15-21 19-1-25?


	8. Magician

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Descriptions of injuries/ burns. Slight claustrophobia. Intrusive thoughts and disassociation.

Ed curled up for a little while.

If he had any energy, mental or physical, he might’ve had the wherewithal to think it pathetic that he was tucked up in a corner, his forehead pressed to his knee and breaths short, over a brilliantly sickening display of talent.

He was _this_ rattled over a goddamn magic trick. It felt awfully juvenile and yet...

The words wouldn’t leave him alone.

But at least the man ( _the voice_ ) was gone.

The encounter left him feeling shaky. Terribly so. His eyes flashed with an afterimage and he ears were ringing so violently Ed thought he might throw up.

It also left him feeling incredibly satisfied because he’d managed to track Mustang— _Marcel_. It was Marcel—through his voice and, in the darkness, lashed his metal leg out with every inch of pent up horror and rage behind it. The limb cracked right into the man’s hand and he fell back with a pathetic yowl.

There was a sharp choir of snaps and, if Ed had to guess, Marcel’s hand would be in a cast for the next few months.

He might pay for that in a painful currency later, but _wow_ had it been worth it.

Not just because he wanted the creep to leave, or a desire to cause him just a little agony.

But because Ed desperately needed him to _stop_.

He wouldn’t ever say it aloud but the all encompassing darkness that shaded the face of the perpetrator made the ordeal ten times worse. It grew harder to remind himself that Marcel was the one talking and not Mustang.

It sounded the same.

It echoed the same.

It yelled and hissed and and spat and threatened the same.

He couldn’t cover his ears from the verbal barrage. He was promised a generous use of the lantern wick if Ed dared to talk over him.

It felt terribly authentic and his chest might’ve grown bruised from how hard his heart had pounded. Ed knew his hands would probably take their time returning to functionality, a tremor making them shiver behind his back.

Every turn of phrase was like a dart, sticking between Ed’s ribs and collarbone, sinking into his eyes with their viciousness. Over and over and over and _god_ it was terrible.

Luckily Marcel hadn’t gotten violent, save for the single, admittedly pretty weak backhand following the aforementioned shuffling of cartilage. Still worth it.

No, he hadn’t gotten violent. But he had gotten _creative_. Ed hadn’t noticed the sliding of a guns safety until the trigger had been about to be pulled.

A cruel bang and burst of fire.

( _Fire_. A burst of _fire_.)

A voice in his ear.

(Animalistic and low.)

A hard, bone wrenching flinch.

_Do you really—_

He was gone now, but Ed was struggling to compartmentalize it all. His head was still spinning and the bright flash made his eyes water.

He settled for ignoring it—as long as he possibly could, Ed was going to ignore this. He didn’t have time to sort through the emotions right now. Marcel left and Ed built himself a dam to keep back as much proverbial water as he could. Leaks would surely spring up, it it was all he could do.

It left Ed to make some terrible decisions, born of genuine panic and desperation.

He could kick the grate off of the vent, easy. The clothes in the corner were all damp, strewn with mildew and untouchable to heat sources. But formaldehyde… it has a special relationship with _fire_.

( _Don't think about it too hard. Don't think about it_.)

He needed to get to one of those jars, but that’d be damn near impossible with rope slung halfway up his arms. After coming close to dislocating his shoulder trying snap the restrains and earning some nasty chafing that tore through a few layers of skin, he’d stopped.

Brute force wasn’t really Ed's shtick anyways.

He’d been stuck back in the dark again. Ed could feel the outline of the matchbox hidden away in his pocket. He drew in a deep breath, then let it out in a puff. “This is gonna suck,” He muttered, “and it’s a terrible idea.”

Ed did it anyways.

Holding the match between his teeth and the box on his shoulder, he raked the tip across until it finally sparked. He spat the little flame onto the ground and pivoted as quickly as he could, pulling his hands apart as they would go and holding the rope above the flame.

Ed heard the stiff crackles of fire catching, pulling apart the braided material and he would have been thrilled if it hadn’t hurt as bad is it did. He never was that lucky. It burned like there was oil in his veins just waiting for this stupid spark to set it off. How fast could skin peel right off?

It was slower than he expected and way more tedious and _fucking hell—_

The heat poked at his automail and ruthlessly licked at his wrist. He could feel the blisters as they formed and popped in a sickly routine and his breathing became strangled and ragged. The only possible silver lining he could find was that the silently screaming pain of the wooden wick colouring his forearm red and black, was that he couldn’t see.

He couldn’t focus on the fact that there was light, and he didn’t have to look at the mountain of corpse-owned sweaters and petticoats, nor the rows upon rows of jars sitting into their rotten little spots. The feeling of white hot hands on his wrist forced him to keep both eyes shut. And yeah, somehow that was a blessing.

It wouldn’t be that bad in the long run, but having to stay still while the broiling touch of the match hugged his skin was crawling its way into his book of things he never wanted to repeat. Ed could taste bile inching its way to the back of his throat. He swallowed back the cries.

Barely.

Two of the cords snapped by the time the fire ate the fuel in full. Ed took a moment to unclench his jaw, feeling it ache from tension. His hands twitched and burned, but Ed tried to wrench them apart anyway, hoping that halfway would be enough for him to simply break out of its grasp.

“C’mon, c’mon...” He hissed, tugging hard enough to make his already limited vision go red tinted and his voice choke out a pained sound. Ed breathed out a weak huff and mouthed indecencies to himself.

This was going to cost two matches.

And a lot more swallowing back cries.

Three cheers for this _absolute bullshit_.

Ed lit the second and cringed, both from the unbearably _scorching_ touch of fire, and the fact that he was already down to six. Soon it would be five, actually.

It took another minute, but as the match sputtered out, the threads loosened, breaking away with a hard yank. Ed peeled the leather from his skin, wincing at the sticky tearing as it took away a few millimetres of flesh with it. It was the shiny type of scrape that hurt like a bitch but wasn’t any more life threatening than a bruise.

It stung when he moved his arm, flexing his hand so blood would be allowed to take up residence where in belonged. The rush of air against the skinned areas with both soothing and terrible.

Ed stuffed the heat-chewed length of rope into his pocket and staggered up, his flesh leg held aloft, balanced on his automail. He held the wall for balance, having to essential hop along, knocking his fist against the wall and listening for the rattling of glass.

He tried not to think about how easy it would be for someone to waltz through the door and ruin his half-baked plan. That would be one hell of a headline, wouldn't it? 

If only Blackwell Springs had a goddamn newspaper.

"Caught in his own escape attempt." He mused bitterly. "Collapsed the cellar out of pure spite."

After a good few minutes of hobbling, he heard the telltale clinking he’d been waiting for and tried to reach up. It took an actual, physical jump for his hand to brush the wooden shelf, and three more tries before he realized he was just sending icy jolts through his foot and not actually getting any closer to knocking down any of the pickled meat.

“Curse my stupid mouse arms…” Ed grumbled.

He made good use of the three-quarters disintegrated umbrella (actually it was closer to five-eighths, but, _math_ ), pushing one jar off its perch with the tip and only barely managed to catch his prize before it shattered onto the ground. Ed picked through the half rotten clothes, selecting the cleanest ones and tearing them into strips.

It was decidedly slim pickings, but hey, beggars, choosers, all that.

It felt like a cast of half-melted glass, sharp and melting at the same time, but he managed to partially immobilize his foot. At least every hop wouldn’t feel like there was shards being shoved through his skin.

The lid on the jar was crusted shut. Ed cringed instinctively at the feeling of digging his nails into the hardened dust and calcium, yanking at it until the metal lid came off with a soft _pop_. His hands were stinging from the overuse, still red from his excursion into exhuming corpses while the burns had began to make startling contact with anything Ed brushed up against. It felt like there was sandpaper against his wrist, soaked in vinegar and kerosene and anything else that would hurt.

Salt in the wound... he didn’t think it could feel this literal but here he was, the sensation of prickling, icy hot grains under his flesh. _God_ , he hoped it didn’t get infected. At the very least his stupid body could hold off on that until he could make a proper call for backup.

Ed sincerely hoped Mustang, sleep deprived as he was, could make the right call and bring someone with him. Whether it was a squadron, his own tight-knit team or even just Hawkeye. If the Colonel was walking in blind, Ed wouldn’t want to wager much on him being able to put all the pieces together soon enough to act.

If only he could see what Ed was about to do… who knows, maybe the jerk might even be proud.

In a wonky, egotistical, _I-taught-him-that_ way. Which was unfair because he hadn’t. Mustang had the _literal_ firepower but Ed had a monopoly on outsmarting larger opponents. It was a necessity.

He couldn’t create bombs on command, but he could home-brew them and wield the thing like a conductor of calamity.

Ed made his way to the vent with a ragged old skirt and unsealed jar in hand, doing a mighty job of forgetting what exactly was in said jar. It took a lot of mental power to suppress the ghoulish image. He knelt at the vent, dousing the fabric in nearly half the jug of formaldehyde and shoving it as far back into the metal shafts as he could. About two feet in, there was a sharp turn upwards. The cloth itself sealed the vent.

He lit a match, ignoring the very visible flesh floating near the top of the glass container and flicked the little flame into the vent. He heard the familiar _whoosh_ of the sparks catching and suddenly there was orange light gushing outwards in a thin breath of visibility.

Ed listened to the crackling of mold as it dried and fizzled into smoke, wafting upwards into the Teller’s precious house.

He limped to where the door was now illuminated, dropping the glass tomb down beside him, ear pressed to the wood.

He strained to hear any kind of commotion—whether it be footsteps or shouting, but either the door was thick or he was farther underground than he thought.

The idea was to flush out anyone in the house with the smoke, transmute the lock off the door and loose himself in the tunnels before anyone had the courage to go back inside. Really, how many people have a good enough grip on their ventilation system to notice where it’d be coming from?

Ed didn’t want to risk getting caught if he used alchemy while they were still nearby, especially with his inch-per-hour pace. He needed insurance. The smoke _was_ that insurance.

After counting to sixty a few times over, Ed guessed they should be gone by now. He pressed his hands together, touching the door and searching for the lock. It was strange feeling to dig for materials he couldn't see. He could sense the mechanisms as though they were part of his hand.

There were levers and crevices where a key would fit and a two inch metal bar that held it all together. That’s what he focused on. It was iron, easy to manipulate and morph.

Ed forwent his usual flare in favour of creating a split through the bolt. He eased the door open, wincing at the squealing of the hinges, caked with rust and the leftovers of shoddy oiling attempts. Ed peaked out into the hallway.

It was a tunnel, actually. Shorn into the bedrock with deep, swooping curves and fractures decorating the ceiling.

The light from the vent barely reached past the door, so Ed listened. The channel ran in both directions, and each were consumed by the darkness within a few feet. He didn’t know which way led where and was ready to made an educated guess when there was a faint _thump_.

Then another.

And another.

It fell into a rhythm that grew nearer from the right. There was a sharp cry and Ed wanted to return it with a doubled down serving of frustration. Instead he muttered to himself and hissed out cursed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He’d gone through a lot of trouble to keep the Tellers from noticing his stunt. There already stood an unstable labyrinth between him and safety, pursuers was something he didn’t need slapped on to the growing laundry list of hurtles.

Ed couldn’t outrun them either. Unless his foot was suddenly gonna un-break.

Oh, wouldn’t that be fuckin’ _grande_.

But somehow, by some stroke of luck or misfortune or god simply messing with him in a petty, horrific way, they’d chosen now to saunter on down to their murder basement. Right as Ed was slipping away.

He couldn’t figure out _why_ or _how_ or—

Ah. Right.

He’d forgotten that key detail, hadn’t he? This was’t just their house. It was a _homestead_ ; a place thats been in the family for generations and of course then knew it like the back of their hands.

Well, shit.

‘Splosion time.

As the footsteps became a pounding melody, Ed grabbed the jar he’d dropped in the doorway and threw the contents across the pathway, formaldehyde and the sticky chunk of skin sloshing over the gravelly floors.

“Hey!”

That was Marcel.

“Don’t do that!” He cried, still out of view. How he was able to navigate the darkness, Ed would never know. Maybe they were all part raccoon or something. That would be an easier pill to swallow than these people just being _people_. Marcel shouted again. “You’ll bring the tunnels down!”

Aw, cute. He thinks Ed is gonna listen.

The match was already blazing to life alongside a rather smug, sinister look on Ed’s face just as Marcel barrelled into view. “ _You—_ “

Ed dropped the match.

The other was cut off by a gust of hot, dry air flinging outwards with the force of the flames reaching up from the ground. They reached along the walls and the force of it blinded Ed momentarily, sucking the oxygen out of the air in a single swipe.

The suddenness of it all made Ed flinch.

He didn’t take more than a moment to collect himself before falling into a painful, limping run in the opposite direction, his left hand skimming the wall to stay relatively on track and hoping that Marcel had gotten thrown around a little by the blast.

Or a lot.

Mostly so that any attempts to chase after Ed would be hindered to the point of needing to bail, but also because the asshole deserved it.

More so that second point, honestly. Ed thought a broken foot to match his own would be rather poetic.

Adrenaline poured over hime like a floodgate had been opened and, the pace increasing with each stumbling step. It hurt and was definitely doing a number on the broken, misaligned bones, but that was a problem for later.

For when he found a way to crawl out of these aqueducts and borrow a phone from the first house he found.

Until then, he would run and savour the feeling of heat rushing over his back.

* * *

There’d been a scream.

Roy’s mind went blank.

The rifle fell from his grasp, wrenched away by Alistair but that hardly mattered. He dashed from the room, following the agonized cries through the rather large, trinket-ridden house. He carelessly knocked things off their place from the walls and off shelves, desperately trying to find where the voice was coming from.

It lead him to a stairwell that was strung with echoes.

The same word spoken by the same voice, bouncing between yelps and scared gasps. “ _Help_.”

It knocked him absolutely senseless for a split second. Ed didn’t… he wasn’t meant to sound like that. What could they possible have done? What could they possibly be _doing_?

“ _Help._ ”

Roy flew down the poorly lit steps as they wound in circles. They were far too long to simply lead to a bottom floor. It ran far deeper into the ground. The air grew damp and thick as he ran, each wooden panel creaking dangerously under his weight.

“ _Help_.”

At the landing, there was a door flung wide open. It was almost solid metal, with a small rectangular window, the glass wired through with mesh. The pleading faded.

Roy’s head whipped from side to side, searching for the familiar shock of blond and terrified that the sound had vanished for the worse of reasons. But there was nothing.

The strange, hollowed corridor of stone and soil was empty, as far as he could tell.

“Fullmetal?” Roy called out warily.

Nothing.

His heart was already thundering but that didn’t stop the threat of a lightening strike from lording over his head. “Fullmetal!” He tried again, straining for a sound.

All he heard was the whistling of drafts and echoes bonding up to greet him.

“Colonel?” Came a feeble whisper, like a blast of dynamite from behind.

“Full—“ He whirling around just in time to watch the door slam shut and the blot locked into place with a heavy, metallic _clack_.

The fire in his stomach grew icy, blown out by a gust of wind. Behind the glass, there was a soft, young face looking back at him. His hair was slightly singed, skin reddened by a light burn. He waved with a broken hand and took to the steps with pride seeping outwards.

Roy—

— _staggered_.

From fear, relief and anger all at once.

Relief because those screams hadn’t been from the kid.

They hadn’t been able to pull pleas from the Fullmetal _stubborn-as-a-muel-with-a-propensity-to-value-dignity-over-self-preservation_ Alchemist. Somehow, they could copy his voice.

Whether they were doing it through the tweaking of their own vocals, or sticking together collected, reordered moments into something worse, Roy didn’t know.

But it hadn’t been real and that fact alone drove his back to a wall and made him slide down to just take in a breath.

Fear because… because they could _mimic voices_ in some mode of distortion or verbal smoke and mirrors. Whose to say they couldn’t use it more to manipulate him in some way?

If Ed was _still_ —if he could find Ed, they could easily use it to stir up buckets worth of confusion, either tearing the two apart or finding ways to turn them against one another. The revelation was so quietly explosive it made his vision swim. This place was a sinking ship all along and he didn’t even notice until he hit the oceans goddamn floor and now he’s stuck here.

And they could mimic voices.

Roy shuddered at the revelation. It would be insultingly easy for Alistair and whoever that younger man had been to trick them into a death match without them even knowing it. He hadn’t even realized the trick just now.

His head dropped into his hands while his mind continued to break marathon records and blast its way through every bad outcome possible.

Cynicism was a shitty thing, wasn’t it. Tantalizing, holier-than-thou, and stacked to the brim with a particularly fun brand of negativity. Now it made him want to punch something.

If there hadn’t been a hole ripped through his gloves—still discorded into that stupid trophy room—he could’ve created a blaze hot enough to melt the door off its hinges and storm the house like a madman.

It was an act he was used to, after all.

A practiced endeavour.

It wasn’t something Roy was proud of, for a long while that fact alone was enough to drown him in remorse, but at least it could’ve been put to use here and now, with rage and flames.

Not for his sake, but for his subordinate.

Who was still missing.

Who was implied to be dead.

Who Roy’s last contact had likely been a sham.

Who had called Roy, of all people, in the middle of the night saying people were dying.

Who had been referred to exclusively and explicitly in the past tense.

And there in came the anger.

Roy took in a slow, stabilizing breath. It failed miserably at its job but at least it kept him from choking on the air.

He needed to get up. He needed to get up and comb through this gapping tunnel to find this stupid kid and slap him upside the head for giving him a stroke.

 _That’s how it worked_.

Roy stood, put his left hand on the wall and followed the smell of boiled chemicals in the hopes that he wouldn’t find a corpse.

* * *

Walking with a broke bone sucks.

Ed could’ve guessed that without actually trying it, but the real kicker (haha, leg) was that people acted like the pain would go away. And sure, maybe if you stayed still and had two functioning hands, maybe some good crutches to move around when not propped up on a couch with ice bags and painkillers, the agony of it all probably would subside.

Some odd hours of trekking through pure darkness, though? It was brutal.

He couldn’t very well stop though. Even with a viable memory of the maps he’d found in the archives, it was nothing but endless, inky blackness down here. Ed could only keep one hand on the left wall and hope he didn’t somehow stumble into a reservoir of tar or, hell, a deposit of more carved up limbs and slabs of meat that might as well have come from a butcher shop.

At least the hot grip of burns had stopped making his arm itch. Small blessings, but he’d take it. Ed could only hope that it stayed clean enough to avoid infection. He was already down two limbs and _Three-fourths-metal Alchemist_ just didn’t have the same ring.

Ed talked to himself as he went.

It was dumb.

He narrated every passing thought that blipped through his brain space and vocalized every curse he’d ever heard, whether it had been bounce through the mess hall ay Eastern Command or rolling off the tongues of Resembool’s chatty farmhands. It came in handy with how often his leg would rear up with a fistful of pain and pummel him into a breathless standstill.

“Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.”

His stomach made a pretty convincing case in response but he couldn’t really afford to be running on empty right now, no matter how nauseous and dizzy he felt.

“Just keep your feet on the ground.” He told himself quietly. The sound danced merciless through the caves, crescendoing as it rounded invisible corners and was spat back into his face. It was almost like some twisted, pathetic duet.

The mirrored responses helped to ground him for a good while, but then they grew haunting.

What if it wasn’t his voice being sent jumping off the stone like a light off of windows?

What if it was someone calling back out to him? It could be. Right?

That wasn’t a crazy thought after all that had happened in the past— _fuck_ —in the past _few hours_. Or at least he _hoped_ it had been hours and not days, weeks or however much time he could’ve lost in that stupid cellar.

Hell, he couldn’t ever guess how long he’d actually been walking for. It could be a few minutes for all he knew. It was nerve wracking because he knew there was a trail behind left behind him, both in the form of cutting a swath through the dusted floors, and because every now and again part of his shitty cast would come loose.

He pressed on regardless.

His own voice responded to the spoken rhetorical questions and senseless muttering. Ed started to feel horror curling up his throat with each reply because _what if—_

What if, what if, what if…

It could be Marcel or Teller, tracking him with his own tone and infections, readying to sneak up and slam his head into a wall before he ever noticed that the echoes were fake.

It could be someone crying out for help, begging in a sick, messed up way using the only words they could put together through whatever hell they were trapped in.

Or he could be losing his mind. He could be going crazy.

Ed stopped talking to himself and focused on the mismatched, dragging rhythm of his feet hitting the ground.

The words washed over him again though. He flinched at nothing and bit the inside of his cheek.

The taunts and jabs made a home in his head. They played on a vicious loop and no matter how Ed tried to distract himself, there was no taking the needle off the record.

_Do you really—_

He clamped down on his lip hard enough to make it bleed and kept moving.

How long had it been since he’d woken up?

How long did he have until exhaustion or dehydration ate him alive?

A slow, sinking feeling was settling on his shoulders as his steps became haunting and weak. It was like realizing there had been a bomb in his pocket the whole time and now the counter was at zero. The force of it shook him. Ed’s chest grew tight and his lungs coiled.

There was _no way…_ not on a broken ankle and devoid of help. Not while his mind had one foot in the insanity gutter and the other tempted to join.

There was just no way.

He wasn’t getting out of this.

* * *

Roy hadn’t really accounted for how dark it would be. Almost nothing was visible and the space was deathly quiet. To the point where his ears started to ring to compensate for the lack of sound.

He hadn’t accounted for how hard it would be to make note of distance either.

His heart chugged along too, making itself progress known with every hammering beat.

Time was… hard.

Roy could easily say he’d been down here for only a few minutes despite the fact that it felt like hours. The occasional flick of air didn’t help his nerves in the slightest. Where exactly that air was coming from, he hadn’t the slightest clue.

This was underground, after all.

But it was a hopeful thought.

Because the drag meant there was a way out, no matter how hard it might be to find, there’s a way to resurface from this hellish maze without bringing two stories worth of rubble and dirt down on top of him.

Roy keep his hand glued to the left wall, tracing it absently. There was the occasional spot that clung to him, feeling dense and sticky under his fingers. The first time Roy had jerked away with a yelp and uselessly tried to see what it had been.

It didn’t hurt him, it didn’t fester into a burn or seep into his skin like a poison. It smelled bitter, with undertones of ozone.

Strangely enough, it reminded him of Central. It was similar to something that permeated the streets every time new building were being thrown up. Not that he was there often enough to see the city grow all that much, but he’d dropped by during the summer when construction workers crawled from their hovels and made their living on rooftops with tools in hand.

Roy could vaguely call back to catching the whiffs of an overwhelmingly sour air, bubbling off of men and women as they laboured. The taste of it almost matched this one.

After the quiet revelation that whatever the stuff was, it was harmless, Roy fumbled to find where the wall was and continued onwards.

Eventually his sight cleared a little, but only in small increments.

He could see shadows against shadows and the outlines of his feet.

Mostly, it was useless.

Early on he’d passed where the chemicals had come from.

There was broken glass on the ground when he’d knelt to search, a door screwed into one of the walls with a blaring cough of smoke and formaldehyde so potent he didn’t dare go inside.

He’d called out a few times just in case, but was met with no response.

Roy could feel that the ground was charred when he tried to inspect. The way it crumbled was a dead give away.

In the silence and sightlessness, his thoughts started to wander a bit violently.

He shouldn’t have humoured the MPs, nor even stepped foot inside that stupid house. He should’ve set all three of them on fire while he still had the chance and take all the comfort he wanted in the smell of singed tissue and evaporating blood. It was a dirt covered, unpleasant thought that rang of his days spent knee deep in sand andashes.

But it persisted, reminding him of the simplicity of ease that came with solving problems through a bonfire. How it could satisfy the screeching, scratching side of him that skewed animalistic in its desire for some grisly closure.

Too bad his gloves were destroyed and with the curling stem of a smoke signal fluttering from a bullet hole. Even _that_ was wishful thinking. They’d probably disposed of them already.

His hands were still useful enough, though. Maybe he could diverge from his tendencies just this once and deliver a split skull to the Tellers.

It would be easy.

Even without the cathartic, satisfying crack of his fingers being pressed together and sending tendrils of flame to peel skin from bone, it would be a relief.

The prevalence of that thought shook him a little, startled by the anger and… and _what_? Worry? Fear? _Protectiveness_? Something else was bubbling up inside, and he didn’t have the heart to put a finger on it.

The scrambling, wrenching need to exact some kind of awful retribution didn’t retreat no matter how many times he locked it away. The whispers of charred skin and broken cartilage bled through the cracks over and over. It was a persistent feeling, Roy would give it that much.

But it paled in comparison to the ever-shifting, endlessly expanding pool of fear that had swelled up in his throat. It poured in icy droves, making him feel numb and chilled, but feverish all at once. It glued his eyelids open, even in the melodic stretch of open darkness, carefully searching for the outline of a person.

His eyes continually stayed downwards.

Part of him expected it— _Ed_ —to be on the ground. It wasn’t like he could see anything, even his own hand being waved in front of his face was unannounced and signified through waves in the air.

Yet, he looked down, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of familiar bright hair. The closest he came was when his foot nudged something soft. For a moment, his steps flailed backwards before remembering what he’d been looking for in the first place.

“Shit,” Roy hissed dropping, his hands running along the ground until it touched whatever he’d walked over. It was a piece of tattered cloth, torn into a strip, one end tied into a knotted rope like a haphazardly cobbled together tourniquet.

He let the cloth fall back to the ground after a moment of contemplation. It wasn’t all that helpful. Roy pushed himself upright, his left hand returning to the chiseled cave wall.

On occasion echo made him jump, but nothing ever came of it. They were isolated events, each coming and going before he could pinpoint a source.

He stumbled over a patch of uneven ground, catching himself with a curse. “How many damn times…”

From deeper within the channel, Roy heard a sharp breath. He stiffened, waiting for another sound to prove he wasn’t imagining things.

Going crazy in a tunnel under some lazy little town with a side order of murder and probably conspiracy. Not how he thought this week would go.

Another soft echo fluttered through his ears, the carefully shuffling of feet. The footsteps stopped abruptly. Roy swallowed back a days worth of anxiety.

He squinted through the darkness, seeing a sharp fork in the pathway just a dozen yards away. There was a quick inhale that certainly wasn’t his own. Roy stiffened.

“Fullmetal?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Leaving y'all on a cliffhanger? Unbelievable.  
> I will say that the reactions to last chapter were... rather enjoyable to watch, so thank you for that. Once again theres some hella cool art! [1](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/632783444460568576/im-back-on-my-shit-again-here-i-just-draw-the) [2](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/632743523689676800/liathgray-the-last-chapter-destroyed-me-thank)
> 
> 20-18-21-19-20 9-19 6-9-3-11-12-5


	9. Storm-like clouds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Depiction of injuries/ burns. Implied disassociation and panic attacks. Questioning reality/ sanity. Discussion of murders. Phycological trauma.

He’d heard something.

Roy was sure of it. He knows he heard the sound of someone breathing and a set of feet shuffling against the ground. He swallowed thickly and hoped that he wasn’t losing his mind.

He couldn’t say how long he’d been wandering, or if could be a hallucination or trick of the echoing tunnels, but no he was _positive_.

“Fullmetal?” He tried again, sounding pitifully hopeful. Roy’s face hardened, steely against the darkness. Squinting didn’t help him see so he strained his ears, holding his breath.

Come on... come on _please._

He had to have heard something. If it wasn’t Ed then...

Roy shook himself and grit his teeth. “Hey,” He started, “Fullmetal, you there?”

Nothing. Deadly, imposing silence flooded over his ears.

For ten impossibly long moments, there was nothing. Roy inched forward, his hand having had fallen away from the wall. He was basically blind, feeling along the ground, his foot skimming for lumps before each stride. They were small, barely half a pace and stumbling. He could feel his mind start to reel and slip. It was suddenly very apparent just how lost he was; just have massively he’d screwed up, and how dark it was. Roy couldn’t see. He couldn’t see anything, not his hand before his own face nor whatever— _whoever_ —else was hiding up ahead. Roy might as well been at the bottom of an ink lake because there was just empty black space in every direction.

His heart started to grow loud in his ears, battling against the ringing that hadn’t let up for a moment, pulse fast and chest tight.

Roy drew in as deep a breath as he could manage. “Say something. There’s no lights and I don’t—“ He cut himself off, swallowing back the doubt that was pooling in his mind. He’s _not_ losing it. Someone is there. Someone has to be there.

“Fullmetal.”

Roy waited and listened, measuring the seconds through his own heartbeat. Terror started to take hold, grabbing at his fingernails and peeling back lays of skin to make room for goosebumps. He felt small and helpless. It was awful; the smell of damp, clay-riddled air was enough to make his lungs stick to one another and struggle. He couldn’t do anything, only hope that it was real. It _had_ to be real because the other options were all sickening.

Either he was already starting to lose his grip on reality or…

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the wandering, rapid thoughts.

_Focus. Listen. You have to listen._

Roy was sure he almost burst his eardrum trying to find any tiny little spot of sound in the lifeless auditory landscape. He waited and waited and _waited_ for some indication that he wasn’t starting to lose it but nothing was—

 _—there_.

Right there.

He heard something. A gaspish, choked sound that wasn’t even up to an airy whisper. His determination grew, as did the doubt. Was this a trap? Again?

It could be. He’d stupidly dropped that damn rifle and maybe they’d be waiting to send lead through his eye sockets before he even registered the flash of the gun. It wouldn’t be hard for them to sneak up on him like this and simply pull off a clean, witness-less execution through the pull of a trigger and—

No.

No. Don’t do that. Don’t overthink, just _listen_.

Roy again held his breath and prayed for a noise. It could be the shattering of glass or a manic laugh for all he cared. Something to prove that he wasn’t alone with his thoughts. Something to prove that he wasn’t too late and Ed wasn't already gone. Something to assure he hadn’t stumbled passed the kid in the sightless tunnels and left him for dead.

Anything.

He’s not asking for much, just a word. A cough or an exhale. That’s it.

“Fullmet—“

A voice cut through the air in a snarl. “ _Fuck you_.”

* * *

Ed felt murderous.

He’d only taken a moment to rest. No more than ten minutes and through some stroke of absolutely _miserable_ luck, Marcel had caught up.

After all the things he’d tried to do. After pulling every string to keep this favourable, or at the very least level, the playing field just dropped out from under him instead.

“Wha—where are you?”

He was using Mustang’s voice again and Ed’s blood was loud like a beating drum. It boiled through his head and made his lungs go all uneven. Ed’s ears still rung from the first round with this mimicking prick and he couldn’t just grit his teeth and bare it a second time. Everything buzzed and fell out of proper focus.

“Ful—“

“ _Shut up._ ” Ed spat.

Of course the creep had fix his first mistake and was calling him _Fullmetal_. His stupid title was being used like a battering ram against him. Ed froze in place and contemplated how quickly he could knock the man's teeth from his head.

Ed bit his lip in a feeble effort to keep his voice from riding any higher and let the stillness drown him. Even crippling, vast, maddening silence was better then their stupid party trick with a twist from hell. Dread gripped him, the relentless feeling making his skin prickle and thin, icy wires thread into his stomach. It crawled through every part of him.

The voice spoke up again. “C’mon, I know you’re there. Unless I’m going nuts.”

He’s not here. He _can’t_ be.

It doesn’t matter that it sounded exactly the same and that it was suited with the perfectly confident tone that the Colonel practically lived in. It doesn’t matter how good of a performance it is. Mustang should be back in East City doing literally anything else. There was no way he could be here.

_It’s not him._

_You’re not going crazy._

_They’re screwing with you._

The voice called out again. “Kid I—“ He faltered, probably looking for some flimsy excuse for him being there. Findsomething to say that would coax Ed out of his merger hiding spot. “—I can’t see down here.”

 _Use your gloves then, idiot_.

Ed wanted to snarl and spit every curse he knew and then some. He’d invent new swears just for this occasion because the Colonel could have simply set a line of fire streaming down the tunnel and Ed _wasn’t stupid_ but it sounded too _real_. The same as before, starting off easy and unchallenging and then— _and then—_

His arms began to shake at his sides, lips pressed in a hard line.

_Not again._

Ed shut his eyes and tried to keep his breathing shallow.

“I can’t see.” He repeated. “I need you to let me know where you are.”

Ed could help but scoff. “Yeah, sure you do.” Despite his words being a low mutter, the stone ricocheted them along the walls. Surely it reached his adversary. Even in Ed’s own ears, he sounded bitter.

Resigned.

Because what the hell could he do? Collapse the cave? Bury himself and Marcel in these worm-ways and have it all mean _nothing_?

Al would be furious with him. Winry would cry.

His… his _friends_ at Eastern Command would have to dig him up from the rubble.

“It’s too dark. You gotta help me out here.” Mustang’s voice echoed and _fuck_ , maybe Ed should give him some pointers because there was no way that the Colonel would every sound that cautious and unsure.

“Shut up.” He growled.

“Fullm—“

“ _Shut up_.” Ed refused to let him finish the word.

He wouldn’t allow it. He couldn’t let it be a weapon again. Even if it ran his throat raw and bloody he couldn’t let the bastard do that shit _again_.

Despite what people thought of Ed—calling him high-strung and uncompromising, saying he didn’t lay and wait or play things carefully—he knew when to cut his losses and surrender.

It wasn’t giving up.

_It wasn’t._

When the other options were trying to run or bringing a metric ton of soil down on his head, Ed would rather temporarily swallow his pride and figure a way out after the fact.

“What?” He did one hell of a job making Mustang sound confused.

“Fuck you.” Ed spat. He felt defeated and inexpressibly livid. If he got the chance, he’d take a shot to Marcel’s kidneys before being inevitably hauled off. His mouth was cottony, too slow in its reaction to keep the name out of the air.

It came like a stick of dynamite being dropped in his lap. A slap to the face and a punch to the throat.

“Fullmetal,” The voice said carefully.

Ed swayed from the force of it, the anger and hopelessness running him through with dozens of needles. He leaned against the wall with a miserable, raged snarl. It apparently did nothing to deter Marcel and he kept on talking like he had any right to speak at all. Like he wasn’t doing the exact same thing as before. Like Ed was actually going to believe him this time. Like it wasn’t twisted and awful and cruel.

“Where are you?” He managed to sound almost hurt and Ed wanted to scream but a jolt of terrible anticipation kept the sound locked in his throat.

Once upon a time, Ed liked the weight of his name. _Fullmetal_ was a term of respect and on occasion it served like a nickname. Now it was making him feel sick and lightheaded.

The words were growing louder, matching up with the hesitant footsteps. “You’re… from Resembool.”

Ed tensed. They’re screwing with him. They had to be. Trying to confirm an identity they’d stolen from Mustang and pretend it’s their own. Ed refused to fall for it.

“You grew up there.”

It didn’t matter if the execution was to the nines or if his own recapture was inevitable. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction a second time. He hated himself for allow it on the first.

“Youngest to pass the State Alchemist exam.” That was common enough knowledge. Anyone who hadn’t been living under a rock knew. It meant nothing. Just a trivial fact that half the country could recite without blinking.

“You’ve been in the military for two years now.” Mustang—Mustang’s _voice_ —said slowly. Anyone could find that out. It didn’t prove anything. Ed forced his eyes open, glaring through the shade.

He could only see vague shapes; silhouettes with their edges blended into the background. He didn’t see any light coming from the other tunnels. Presumably, Marcel was standing at the fork, trying to decide where to go but, for whatever reason, without a lantern.

Ed would haven been able to see the soft glow.

Maybe he was trying to mess with his head like before. Not being able to see _who_ the voice was coming from made it all feel so much more real and genuine.

Like it had actually been Mustang pacing around the cellar and tearing into his psyche.

The attempts had been flimsy at best. Ed had seen hell and walked out grinning, alongside being knocked to the ground via double amputation. If all that couldn’t keep him down, than some cruel words coming from the mouth of someone he trusted wouldn’t do it either.

He told himself the lie on repeat. The mere memory of it was driving him into the ground. His hands almost began to twitch again from a hot burst of fear and hate, curled together in a deathly waltz that would finish with his sanity on a spike.

It sucked; it was horrid and ghastly; it still made Ed squirm.

Mustang’s voice continued though, growing more and more hesitant like he was cherrypicking each word. Which he was, to be clear. Likely looking for a way to not tip Ed off.

Hah. Idiot.

“You have a younger brother and you usually travel by train together.” Someone could learn that by osmosis. It had practically become a joke at HQ that Ed and Al were allergic to cars.

“His name is Alphonse and he’s, like, seven feet tall.” They’d been in papers before. People mistook Al as the infamous Fullmetal Alchemist on the daily.

“You two tried to bring your mother back—“

Ed froze up.

His mouth went dry.

Wait.

 _Wait_.

Just—

—fucking—

— _wait_.

Marcel couldn’t have known that. No one in Blackwell could’ve.

There were only five people in the world who _did_ know.

Mustang was one of them.

His breath caught in his throat, a hard ringing drowning out anything else that might’ve been said; all sounds were completely redacted. There was no other piece of evidence needed.

Anxiety raised its meek head and spitballed terror into his ears.

They could’ve found out somehow. The Colonel might’ve blabbed.

_He wouldn’t._

Ed peered around the corner and searched for any outlined form that wasn’t welded to the walls.

Paranoia yelled and begged him to turn away, but his hand drifted towards the box of matches. It was like moving through a daze as he struck the ignition material with a puffy hiss. Ed threw the spark at the silhouette’s feet.

It lit him up in a flicker.

Yeah, no one could fake that.

A voice, sure. He probably wouldn’t have believed that one could pitch their noise box to perfectly to match another it a week ago, but he knew you couldn’t fake the whole person.

Ed’s hand braced against the wall, silently watching Mustang take a half step back, looking lost, but still somehow determined. He expected himself to feel relived or maybe grateful, but no.

Ed just got mad. _Blindingly_ mad.

He limped around the corner with all the speed he could muster. Mustang must’ve caught sight of him and breathed out a sigh of exasperation. “Really had me going for a second— _woah!”_ He almost tripped as Ed took a wide swing. He lashed out with his metal hand and narrowly missed landing the blow.

The older man backed out of range, nearly stomping out the match trying to avoid the slow attempt at an attack. “Hey! Fullmetal, calm dow—“

He did _not_ calm down. He sent the heel of his hand flying. Mustang wasn’t much for dodging, but Ed wasn’t exactly in top form either. “Listen to me—!” The older man tried to say.

A lucky clip to the shoulder made Mustang’s face harden. Ed knew he wasn’t going to accomplish anything by trying to beat the older up. Except that it would make him _feel_ better, which was a good enough reason in his books, honestly.

Because he wasn’t supposed to be here and he certainly wasn’t supposed to be _alone_.

He threw half his weight into a sucker punch and the older alchemist managed to grab his metal hand before the hit found a resting place in Mustang’s nose. He looked more confused than anything else. Ed ruthlessly strained against his grip, trying to force his way to his target. “Relax, kid! You _know_ me!”

Ed did _not_ relax.

His head was buzzing with every flavour—genre, brand, whatever—of anger and all of it was pointed at king of the idiots, Colonel Mustang. Ed wrenched his fist away and was ready to simply damn his flesh leg to a roar of pain and launch himself into a kick.

Mustang grabbed him by the shoulders before he could level out his footing. “What’s wrong with you?!” He demanded forcefully.

Ed glowered, knocking his hands away in a swift, harsh motion. “What’s wrong with _you!_ ” He shot back. “You shouldn’t be here at all!”

His bafflement only increased and the blond felt a tugging in his stomach that cried out for him to _back down_. But since when had he listened to anyone? Not even his own terror could do it.

Ed seethed. “I swear to god if you didn’t bring some kind of backup I’ll slash your throat,”

Mustang cut him off before Ed could finished his verbal rampage. “ _You’re_ the one who called in the middle of the night saying someone had been murdered!”

“I also said to _bring some fucking backup!_ ” He shouted back. Ed breathed out through his nose in a harsh puff, his face twisted up with a lot of less-than-kind emotions.

The older man fell stoically quiet.

Something told Ed to shut up. He shouldn’t provoke Ma— _Mustang_. It was just poor planning and a recipe for a loss of sanity. Not that Ed had much of that to begin with, but he was desperately clinging to what was left. He should quiet down and… and listen. That’s what he should do.

Every single self-preserving instinct in his body begged him to shut up.

_Do you really—_

Through some miracle of sheer overwhelming stubbornness, he did not.

Ed glared viciously. “So help me if you— _god_ , they’ll just kill us. Like, _actually_.” He barked out a humourless laugh, staring straight into Mustang’s eyes and watching them grow more blown and sharp. Ed’s voice was a toss up of venom and the powdery line between intense and insane. What did he have left to lose? “They’ve been doing it for ages and were planning to screw both of us over anyways and you’re here _alone_ —“

“I get that you’re mad, but you need to calm down.” Mustang stepped away, hands raised placatingly. It felt wrong to see the stern, knowing look on his face paired with a careful demeanour.

Every word made his head hurt and he was beating back the need to run because something in him kept on _flinching_ away.

“ _You_ calm down!” Ed snapped. “These nutcases have been getting away with murder for forty years so don’t tell me I can’t be un-calm.”

His word choices were slipping a little, sounding a touch more unhinged than they normally did but Ed thought he had a perfectly reasonable excuse for being more manic. The loud throbbing that arced up and down his leg wasn’t helping his coherency either, but he didn’t need scholarly diction to show that he’s pissed.

And frustrated.

And hurt.

Maybe scared. Only a little.

A lot.

_Do you really think—_

Mustang reached forward a little but quickly aborted the motion at the way Ed’s lips twisting further downwards and took a step back. He closed his eyes with a breath, sounding insultingly incredulous. “Fullmetal,”

He hated the sound. Abhorred it and loathed it and wanted to turn and run the other direction.

_Ed didn’t flinch._

“No, no, no. You can screw right off with that.”

“Slow down,” Mustang said firmly.

Ed’s hands were balled into fists, the trembling in his shoulders only barely shoved down by a misplaced sense of pride. “Colonel, I swear—“

“To god?” He asked mildly.

Ed sneered in response, his jaw twitching and hands starting up a fervent, flexing rhythm of closing and opening. “On your musty grave.”

“Points for creativity.”

“Can you stop being a jerk for two seconds?!” His words tore through the oh so quiet tunnels like a bottle rocket in the middle of winter—something that didn’t even know it wasn’t supposed to be there but managed to make a cozy, blazing hot and angry home in his mind. He glowered accusingly at the Colonel. “The MPs are cracked and their pseudo-mayor is a serial killer.”

“I’ll stop being a jerk when you stop talking in circles.”

“Talking in—!”

Mustang gave him a stoney look. Ed returned the favour, welding metal plating onto his distain and ready for a glaring match to equal a violent joust. The silence fell over them thickly as the glowing match at their feet began to wane.

Without preamble, Mustang knelt. He broke their staring contest but it didn’t feel like much of a win. They were both too stubborn for an honest truce.

Unfortunately.

Mustang would continue to pry after he finished being a certified fire hazard.

To Ed’s shock, he flippantly sank his teeth into his thumb, drawing a steady ribbon of blood and using it to draw a circle around the dying match. A bit dramatic, but Ed was hardly one to talk. He watched as a familiar array was scribbled out in red. Mustang touched a finger to the circle and the flames grew brighter, gnawing away at the stick in seconds and supporting itself on an influx of oxygen.

So he’d lost his gloves at some point.

Just… _fantastic_.

The older alchemist eyed Ed, then the ground. The motion was repeated in a clear message to _take a damn seat, you stupid brat_. The blond frowned, but his pulse had already started to settle into a less fearsome pattern.

Mustang was hunched over, crosslegged and tapping his fingers against his knee, waiting for Ed to stow away his dignity in favour of not being a stubborn ball of short fuses. Eventually, he relented with an aggravated huff.

It was a bit awkward to sit with one leg tucked close and the other laid flat, made apparent by the raised eyebrow he got from Mustang. Ed flipped him off and grumbled out words so acidic they even tasted sour in his mouth.

“You done now?” Mustang asked him, as though nothing had happened.

Ed shook his head in disbelief. “Can’t believe I didn’t punch you.”

“Not for lack of trying,” The dark haired man reminded him casually. The hardened, almost metallic look he’d worn before was chipping away. He was looking Ed up and down, eyes darting from his cloth-bundled foot to the stark bruises on his cheek and jaw.

His gaze flitted over to Ed’s arm and the blond tried to slyly bury it in the folds of his clothes.

“You want fill me in now?” Mustang asked. There was a note of teasing in his voice that was oddly familiar, in a way both soothing and biting. What an unfortunate curse that the Colonel sounded like himself.

Ed shivered inwardly, but breathed in deeply nonetheless.

It was infuriating that Mustang, by some trick of the light or perhaps through dabbling in witchcraft, was able to make his head cool. He was also the best at setting firecrackers off inside Ed’s skull and prompting threats by the fistful, but, well, what comes up must come down.

Maybe it was just because he was the only person within a hundred or so square miles that Ed knew.

That he could _trust_ , no mater how bad he wanted to kick him in the shins and send every unfair, unearned criticism and insult down like a storm over Mustang’s head. Ed did trust him.

Sadly.

( _No you don’t. Not anymore._ )

He hated to admit it, would never say it to anyone other than to the thoughts lurking in his head, but at least the Colonel was reliable. That was something Ed could count on.

( _It’s not. You can’t._ )

He shot the man an unimpressed look and gestured to their quaint little accommodations.

“Crazy town leader who can mimic voices. MPs are in on it. They’ve been killing for decades.” His listed off grievances, ticking a finger off of his right hand for each item, the left still carefully obscured from view. “The records are a bust. The bodies get dumped in the fields. I’m out of fingers. That sum it up?”

“ _Quite_.” The word was clipped. “But I meant why you—“ He waved a hand to Ed, eyes briefly narrowing. “—look like that.”

Ed sniffed indignity. “ _Rude_.” His fingers flicked absently at the dirt-packed floor. “I’ll have you know I’ve _always_ looked like this, you crusty old spork.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m sure that I don’t.” He tilted his head, looking up at the pulsing light that twirled itself into orange-stained spools across the carved ceiling. Ed avoided eye contact because he knew damn well that, when his own heart wasn’t sewn to his sleeve, it would puddle and pool in his eyes. It was the one part he could never seem to be able to mask over.

“You’re a bad liar.” Mustang said.

Dammit.

The blond scoffed under his breath. What business did this prick have pulling his words apart at the seems? The Colonel poked dangerously at the ball of heat he was sustaining, the oxygen filtering from around them to make the cluster burn, tiny and bright.

“Well then it’s a good thing I’m not lying.”

“Let’s see your arm then.” Mustang challenged. Ed refrained from jerking away. “The left one.”

Ed turned his head away, doubling down and trying to bluff his way through because now was not the time for Mustang to be on his case for some injuries that genuinely weren’t that pressing.

They hurt, yes. A lot, but it was manageable.

And... and he didn’t really want to explain it either. Sucked enough the first time, why should he have to jump through the memory hoops again? He didn’t owe an answer and the older alchemist sire as hell wasn’t entitled to one. Especially now, with Ed’s head still spinning and his instincts positively wailing at him to take off in a sprint.

There’d be no point in having Mustang flip his lid over it when it didn’t matter and was over, done with, unchangeable and none of his _damn business._

There was a fifty-fifty chance the Colonel would either forbid him from standing up—as though Ed would even listen—or start grilling him on how it happened. Which Ed wasn’t really in the mood to divulge at the moment. Or ever, actually.

It could shrivel and die along with the memories.

There was the unlikely third option of the older alchemist being normal about this and not go digging into the causes. But that was roughly at the same likeliness level of a town run by a murder-happy family of copycats.

Bad analogy, but the point still stood.

At least, it _did_ until Mustang’s hand flew forward and steamrolled all of Ed’s expectations. He didn’t have the wherewithal to react in time, so he was able to snag Ed by the wrist and pull the limb out into the open.

“Hey!” He cried. Mostly out of surprise, but with a small (absolutely unbearable) twinge of pain because the burns were still fresh and hot to the touch. The sudden motion was jarring. Definitely not from a spike of terror. No, it wasn’t that at all. Of course it wasn’t. That would be ridiculous. Ed didn’t…

_Ed didn’t flinch._

He didn’t jump away.

Mustang held his arm aloft, a frown on his lips and his eyebrows pinched. “Wow,” He sounded almost impressed, but a hint of anger made itself known all the same, “did you take a lighter to this or something?”

Ed stared him down vindictively. “Yes.”

He fought back the urge to wrench his hand back and kick Mustang in the face. His hand was fidgeting, moving without permission, driven by a desperate, self-preserving instinct to _get away._ Ed tamped it down and straightened up.

He couldn’t lizard-arm-trick his way out of this, so he might as well deliver a righteous blow to Mustang by way of shock value and cold, hard truth. One of them, at least.

The older man's mouth fell open. Mustang’s eyes blinked between the reddened, blistered skin and the unbothered look on Ed’s face, expression hardening. “You’re kidding.” He said slowly.

Ed looked away with a wordless sneer. He felt the grip on his arm tighten. “Fullmetal.” _Don’t say that_. Ed froze, jaw locked and eyes darting. Mustang’s tone dropped, like it had fallen from a cliff. He sounded pissed. Like, really, really pissed and it sent a chill through the air. The Colonel was mad.

Livid.

He sounded _exactly like—_

“Care to explain this?”

“Lighter.” Ed spat.

“And the rest of it?” He demanded. His gaze was locked on something in the dim, fiery orange lighting and Ed didn’t really care what it was he just wanted his arm back, thank you very much you _nosy prick._

He tugged experimentally and, of course, the grip held fast. “Could you _let go_ already?” He jerked back in a weak attempt to free himself.

Mustang glared for a split second before his attention returned to Ed’s arm, glowering at it. Not the burn, though. No, his eyes went elsewhere, growing more alarmed by the second and Ed finally wrenched the limb away before he could get too many theories buzzing around. Surprisingly, the Colonel let go, his grasp falling away pliantly. Ed’s eyebrows raised.

The older man gave him an exasperated, still clearly mad look, but he, for the first time like… ever, let it slide. It must be raining whiskey and rum: Mustang actually backed off. It was a bewildering shock, but easier than Ed had expected. He had thought Mustang would tightened his grasp and berate him for being uncooperative.

But no. He actually… let go. Mustang cast his signature _I’m-begging-for-a-shoe-to-the-face_ frown and Ed shuffled back to lean against the wall.

“You can’t expect me to believe that.”

 _Goddammit_.

“Oh screw off. You’re the one who ran off in the dead of night for no reason.”

Mustang’s mouth twisted. “You’re the one who looks like they got beat up.”

Ed rolled his eyes and shifted, doing all he could to hide his arm, letting his hair fall over where he knew there was a bruise just below his eye (thanks Teller), shadowing the little burn across his cheek, and keeping his busted leg tucked close. “I thought I made it pretty clear that you can keep you nose where it belongs.”

“And where would that be?” Mustang asked.

“On your face,”

“I’m relatively certain your broken ankle and second degree burns—“

“First degree.” Ed corrected.

Mustang scowled at him and ignored the comment. “— _second degree burns_ , are under the umbrella of where my nose might belong.” He finished, scanning Ed for the thousandth time. As though new injuries would manifest if he stared hard enough.

“Pfft.” He brushed off the startlingly worried looks from Mustang with a restrained flourish. “My ankle isn’t broken anyways. Just, like, sprained.”

“So you’re hopping on one foot for fun, then? Got it.”

Ed sighed, his head hanging and shoulders released from a tension that had been clawing at this. He glanced up warily. “Are you gonna drop this?”

Mustang have the boldness to chuckle. Like, zero shame, no hesitation. He just snickered. “Hah, no.”

Ed looked at the ground, mutely tracing the long shadows sprayed from the light over the bumpy ground. His automail clicked on contact, making a line around where the light was blotted out. A shadow map, coloured out onto the ground like it would do anything to help.

It was a decent distraction though.

He didn't want to be here. He wished his ears would stop registering sound for a while. That would make this a little less excruciating. It would make him stop wanting to _run_.

Mustang’s voice came again, a bit less abrasive this time. He jolted at the sound anyways. “At least let me look properly.”

Ed hummed in discontent. “Can I take a rain check?” The malice in his voice died halfway through the sentence.

Mustang shook his head, folding his arms over his chest. “No deal; there’s clear skies all the way.”

“It doesn’t even hurt!”

“Two minutes later and you’re still a bad liar.”

Ed groaned, his head hitting the wall with a low thump. He stared up for a moment. “I hate you.”

“I’m honoured.” Mustang replied. Ed glanced over with an incredulous curl on his lips. The older man didn’t seem to notice. Or he didn’t care. Probably the second one.

He held his hand out to Ed, shuffling a little closer, but still keeping a respectable distance between them. There was enough open space that Ed would be able to pull away if need be. “Just let me see me you arm. Hopefully you didn’t get it infected already.”

“Thanks for that. My self esteem is soaring.” Ed muttered.

He reluctantly let the older man examine it. Another moment of perplexity came when Mustang didn’t actually touch his arm.

The older dutifully ignored him and concentrated on the burn. Out of, say, curiosity, Ed followed his gaze and winced at the sight.

He hadn’t taken a look at it since… _ever_. Ed was more concerned with getting away when he’d set the corridor ablaze and adrenaline had been covering for him up until about half an hour ago.

It wasn’t like he had any access to light anyways. There were the matches, of course, but there were only three left now and he sure as hell wasn’t going to waste one making himself sick by looking at the torn mess of skin.

It looked pretty grisly. Though the burn did hurt, Ed hadn’t expected it to look _that_ bad. Mustang was right about it being second degree, apparently.

Ed wondered if his nerves had overloaded and simply stopped registering the proper pain levels.

Or maybe the placebo effect and his own mind were preforming the hat trick of the century and tamping down what should be a looping wave of debilitating agony.

It had spasmed a bit, from time to time, making Ed pause and swear with every inch of the spirit he’d heard in the hallways of Eastern Command.

Still, now being able to see the sickly symphony of blisters, melded holes and patches of yellow made his stomach roll a little.

“Could be worse,” Mustang finally said, “would help if there was something clean to cover it with but it should be fine with some decent medical attention. After all this, I mean.”

After all this. Like it was the simple.

They lapsed into another stretch of awkward silence. Ed both desperately wanted to break it and was perfectly content stewing in it. Talking would probably lead to getting prodded and poked for an explanation.

Mustang was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Ed almost snapped at him to stop. They roamed for a moment before becoming fixed on his stilly messily tied up ankle. Then darted over to his forearm, above the burn where there was a series of shallow scrapes from the... _ah shit._

Ed knew exactly what was going through the Colonel’s mind.

The man got a certain look about him, his nose wrinkling a little and a crease folding over his brow. His eyes narrowed and Ed’s whole being seized up.

_Don’t you dare, Colonel._

“It looks like you—“ He started.

Ed interrupted him with a phoney cough and one masterfully sharpened glare. “I’m assuming you don’t know where an exit it?”

He frowned, clearly not happy with the consistent interruptions, but thankfully let the matter drop. Mustang’s hand drifted to his pocket. “Not a clue. I was just using the left wall.”

“Yeah me too. But I couldn’t see anything then.”

He frowned at the younger alchemist. “So? Aren’t these tunnels hard to get through anyways?”

“Well yeah,” Ed leaned forward, mindful of his _darling_ little break, “but they had maps.”

The older man hummed. “In the archives.”

“Yeah. I… I think I can remember how to get to the library.” Ed told him, the confidence normally held in his voice dwindling away. He saw the doubtful look on Mustangs face and stiffened. “Roughly.” Ed amended.

“Okay, but why the library?”

“There’s something I want to check. A hunch.”

Mustang stood, offering Ed a hand. He slapped it away with a glare.

* * *

Roy ended up sacrificing part of his jacket (you will be remembered, sleeve cuffs) to make a torch—a circle was inked in blood over the base so that their fuel wouldn’t run out—the staff curtesy of a very careful clap from Ed, who eyed the fissures over the walls all the while like they were watching him.

Roy could hardly blame him: everything about this maze was withered and old. They looked ready to crumble away and leave them drowning in dirt and pebbles. Roy watched Ed out of the corner of his eye as they walked, his mouth stitched shut and his hand braced against the wall.

The younger still refused to elaborate on the burns and the very obviously mangled foot. The way it hovered a few inches off the ground was proof enough that it was way worse than a sprain. Roy wasn’t one to fuss—he trusted that people would ask for help when they needed it, he knew that they wouldn’t waste his time with trivial things but also weren’t afraid to go to him. Usually, this worked fine.

 _Usually_. But of course because nothing could ever be by the books in the realm of the Elrics, Ed was the exception.

Because he’s young and stubborn and bullheaded at the best of times. He tended to hide things away under an act of brashness, pretending like he didn’t have a filter for the sake of throwing people off his trail. Ed would rather take a nosedive into literal boiling water than ask for help and it would earn him a shiny headstone and handpicked coffin one day.

It drove Roy up the wall.

As in, _presently_.

He could feel the frustration sprinting around inside of him, knocking into walls and crashing through logic and tact gracelessly. He came close to punching a wall and spending as much time as he could grilling the boy on what the hell had happened and… and he _wanted_ to know.

Because the scream still rang in his ears. Because he needed to justify the absolutely overpowering hate and bloodlust he felt towards Alistair and the MPs and whoever else they’d dragged into this.

Because he still looked over half expecting that it was some kind of illusion.

Roy needed to know because Ed, of all people, seemed _scared_.

It was something he had never seen in the kid before, not really. Even when fear was there, it was teeming with intelligence and cut down to a fine point. It was always a game or challenge to Ed, even when the chips were down and every odd was against him he would swing for the parking lot. He’d been through hell already. What could have possible been done to shake him this much?

It was as though Ed didn’t believe help would actually be offered, despite the numerous occasions that proved the contrary. He expected little of adults and turned away from their concern. Al did it too, but with a polite nod and speaking in such a kind way that it hardly felt like a refusal at all.

So, they were the exception.

Ed was holding himself like a wounded animal and wincing every third step. Roy was getting fed up with it, but didn’t want him to get all cagey upon questioning either.

It was like trying to thread a needle with two left hands and looking through the wrong end of a telescope. It was easier to not try at all, but Roy was nothing is not persistent.

The thing that nagged at him loudest, somehow, wasn’t the grisly scoring of burns that were recent enough to still be radiating heat, dotted in blisters and freckled with black against the loud, angry red. It wasn’t the fact that Ed was walking with a generous limb, braced against the wall and refusing to even look his way. Not the exhaustion or stark bruise that coloured his cheek. It was what he got a slight glimpse of when he had managed to catch the kid off guard and get a look at his arm.

He'd seen it again in the fiery light when Ed had let him take a look more voluntarily and his stomach had started to churn.

There were indents. Impressions winding up towards his elbow, skinned and raw and it looked like—

—it _looked_ like he’d been tied down.

How or why, Roy had no idea. But the lines were awfully distinct.

Yes, he could feel his blood as it boiled and the hate as it folded outwards, right along with the _want_ to know exactly what went down.

For a report, for a court case, for whatever his brain could come up with as an excuse. It was pretty selfish, from the motive to the urging behind it; painfully self serving, prying for the sake of his own assurance, but Ed wouldn’t _talk to him._

Of course he wouldn’t. How _dare_ Roy expect otherwise. He was sealed up and keeping as far away from Roy as he could, even in the cramped tunnels. Infuriating.

Absolutely infuriating.

( _Worrisome_.)

He tried to ask and was shut down faster than he could think possible. “When are you going to keep being stubborn about this?” He asked mildly.

“About what?” Ed seemed to seethe.

He paid it no mind and barrelled ahead. “Oh I don’t know. Maybe the burns, the broken ankle—“ The boy grimaced, scowling at his own traitorous, uncooperative limb. “—and the fact that it _looks like—_ “

He was cut off in a swift, venomous, biting hiss. “Would you _back off?_ ”

“Are you going to actually talk to me if I do?”

“ _Are you?_ ” Ed shot back, throwing out the words like they’d been poison in his mouth. “You show up out of _nowhere_ , alone, without your stupid gloves and you really don’t seem to get that we’re _screwed_. The closest train is three miles away and as you _so_ _kindly_ pointed out, _my foot is busted!_ We’re stranded and probably being marketed to the town as criminals so don’t you fucking _dare_ try to lecture me about _not talking_ because you’ve got way more explaining to do.”

Roy blinked, taken aback by the sheer ferocity of the statement. Ed glowered with everything he had in him, brimming with rage and… and betrayal.

Something in his stomach wrenched and curled.

The harsh emotions were replaced with shock for a second, as though Ed didn’t even realize what he’d been doing. He took a half step back, seeming to come back to himself a little, the ire in his eye dying down to a careful pair of embers and the alarming air of _hurt_ that had been rolling off was locked up tight.

Roy barely noticed that they’d both stopped walking while Ed had gone on his tirade. The two alchemists stared at each other for an unbearably long moment and all Roy could do was remain tense. He held up his hands in a surrender.

Th kid watched him critically, taking another step away. It looked innocent enough but something about the act was _wrong_. Roy could feel it somewhere in his being, a clutching, manic sensation that cried out that something was terribly, terribly off.

He could've sworn he saw Ed flinch. 

...Away from _him_.

“I just want to know what happened.” He said slowly.

Ed turned away with a growl. “And I just want you to _stop asking_.”

Roy sighed in resignation and did his best not to think too hard about the chaffed marks that were pressed in dark rivets up to the kid’s forearm.

They walked for who know how long in silence, save for the echoing of their own footsteps and that low grade of the tunnels as they seemed to come alive. Maybe these were the veins of some beast. Perhaps a pathway to its stomach where they’d dissolve in acid and be left as nothing but a wisp of bones and a few heaps of metal.

He shuddered inwardly and cast a sidelong look to Ed.

“You sure you remember right?”

“Oh shut up.” Ed grumbled back.

They swerved into a smaller channel, Ed making decidedly confident moves that just about convinced the older man that he did, in fact, know where they going.

He was still dubious of their route, with what looked like endlessly similar paths and a roundabout feeling that teased at the back of his neck. They could be headed in the right direction, or they could be weaving in loops. He couldn’t tell, but Ed was smart beyond his years and a quick thinker, so Roy put his faith in the kid.

The firelight made it all look eerie, it screamed dancing shadows onto the stone that shifted about to fluidly there were times Roy thought they might belong to a person.

It felt like the walls grew eyes as they went, with the prickling sensation of being watched tangling into the air. Roy could tell it wasn’t just his own nerves; Ed could feel it too.

His eyes slid side-to-side every time the flames flashed a little too brightly and a mirage of a person would burn an afterimage before them.

Of course, there was no one there.

Roy kept his eyes forward as much as possible, but they continued to stray down to the uneven, dragging steps that Ed took. His exasperation doubled, tripled and enveloped his thoughts.

The kid was going to land himself with permanent nerve damage if his kept on like this. Roy wanted to take a moment to knock his head against a wall just to get some of the impatient incredulousness out of his system.

“Hey, Colonel.” Ed’s voice brought his thoughts to a halt. He glances over to find himself steadily fixed by an unexpectedly bright set of eyes. He would have thought they’d been tarnished and weary by now, but no, Ed apparently didn’t know how to turn off his own vibrancy. “You know about fire stuff.”

Roy nodded with a small smirk. “You’re a true detective, Fullmetal. You figure that one out all by yourself?”

Ed gave him one hell of a dirty look and held up two fingers. “First off, I hate you.” Roy’s smile only broadened. “Second… you wouldn’t happen to know what’s in a match head, would you?”

He tilted his head, taking a moment to skim through his mental files on all the flammable solutions that could be cooked up by alchemy or skilled chemists. He reeled in exactly nothing and gave Ed a shrug. “No. Why would I?”

“I don’t know _Flame Alchemist_ , you tell me.” Ed scoffed.

He held up his free hand in meek peace offering. “Point taken, but why do you want to know?” Roy asked, eyebrows raised slightly.

Ed slowed, his pace coming to a crawl and then stopping altogether. Roy paused, turned to walk as the blond dug through his pocket, fishing out a small wooden box with faded text and a strip of checkers along one side. He shook it lightly to a merger orchestra of rattling sticks. “Cause I don’t know what’s in them either and I’ve got, like, three left.”

That was a bit of a problem now, wasn’t it.

With nothing else for ignition, it’s not like they could simply transmute a more flammable substance and solve the issue. The matches were their only source of light through these tunnels. Unlike the night, or even a cellar of some kind, there was no refraction.

There was the moon gleaming down overhead along with the stars at night, and even most basements had sliver-like windows cut along the ceiling.

But down here was nothing. It was impossible to know what time it was or how long they’d been down here. The only thing Roy had to go off of was his own exhaustion, but considering he’d forwent half a nights sleep to get to Blackwell… it was not the most reliable way to measure time.

He forced his grip to loosen on the torch and tried to brush away the stinging of defeat that swell like saltwater at the back of his throat. Roy nodded, ironing out every negative crease on his face as he spoke in waves of calm. “Ah. Well, three is better than two.”

Ed huffed out a laugh. “You sound like a nursery rhyme.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The lighter feeling was gone as soon as it appears, tension dipping between them with leaden limbs and discomfort riding off it’s back, making everything feel once again weighted. There was a pressing, heavy _something_ teetering on his chest as gravity pulled their circumstances into horrific focus.

Roy ran a hand down his face, hoping it would brush away the bricks that were hanging from his lashes and telling him to leave reality in favour of watery dreams.

All he managed to do was find a soft layer of dust dashed around his face.

Ed took two wobbling steps forward, stashing the box in a pocket hidden somewhere on his person and kicking at the ground. “If I had to guess, it’s sulfur and something to oxidize. Maybe some dust for a mini-dust-explosion.”

“Chlorate would work,” Roy conceded. He could almost see the pistons firing off in Ed’s mind, whirring and coughing out brilliant half-baked ideas that most adults would spend weeks on, pen in hand and tearing their hair out. He spewed knowledge like it was a party trick.

“Or potassium?” Ed suggested.

“Yeah. I’d bet theres a filler in there too for the initial fire to latch onto.”

“Right. Problem is there’s no decent soil around here, we’re too far down. It’s bedrock and clay.”

“Why does that matter?”

Ed pointed to the torch, the little bulb of fire that flapped and stilled with Roy’s motion. “Sulfur is what catches fire, right?” The blond asked him.

Roy’s brow furrowed. “Yeah,”

Ed sighed like he’d has confirmed something terrible. _Had he?_

The younger alchemist tapped his knuckles against the wall with an irate, downtrodden quirk to his lips. “Sulfur doesn’t leech into clay.” He traced a thick, grey line that flourished outwards, mangling with the darker stone to illustrate. The fact that there was clay here at all was a miracle, really. If these really had been aqueducts and the clay left un-cured, it should’ve been inhaled into the earth decades ago. “And it’s not like I can pull it out of nowhere.”

“Be careful with the ones you have, then. Emergencies only.”

“Emergencies only.” Ed echoed. He thought for a moment, his eyes aimlessly narrowed into half-focused slits. Then Ed nodded. “Alright.”

They move onwards. Or at least they started to.

After only a few paces, Ed suddenly froze. The motion was stiff, like electricity had taken to buzzing through his veins. “Something wrong?”

Again, Roy swore that the kid had—

Ed didn’t answer, his face just grew more severe; more intense, analytical and coiled, like a spring ready to snap open. “Why’re you here?” He asked, sounding a little dazed.

“You called in the middle of the night—“

“No, no, no.” Ed shook his head. “I mean here _specifically_. _Underground_.”

“Am I missing something?” Roy shot the boy a puzzled look and he pushed back his hair with a huff.

“You were a loose end. That’s why they told you to come, so they could kill you.” Ed’s hands were fidgeting, the cuffs of his sleeves being picked at just to have something to do. He didn’t bother to make his expression more presentable; it was no less upturned, instead looking shamelessly curious with an unhealthy note of _I’m not letting this go until I get an answer_ that Roy wished he could adopt for himself.

“The tunnels don’t have easy access, not really. I couldn’t find a proper way down on my own and I’d already been looking for the past few days. And you were coming from the same direction as me.” Ed finished, his eyebrows going haywire with little twitches.

Roy was left dumbstruck and suddenly he felt a lot worse about prodding Ed about his injuries. Suddenly, he wanted to clam up and not admit to anything that had gone down. The mad dash he’d made, steering through five different counties for the sake of avoiding traffic and breaking laws.

He didn’t want to say why he’d been so frantic.

Why he’d been stricken with unease, then real fear soon after.

Or how he’d been led down into the underground channels.

That he, since the words had fallen from Alistair’s mouth and crashed down like liquid anxiety, had been beating back the fact—the _thought_ that Ed was already dead.

Suddenly, Roy’s face was washed with blankness.

_Don’t you get it? He’s already in the ground._

“Colonel?”

The words were threatening to drag him under. Ed sounded a little far away. Ghostly, actually. How plausible was it that he had cooked up some vivid hallucination to compensate for the truth? It wasn’t impossible, that was certain. Maybe that’s why the younger alchemist was keeping a good few feet away, looking Roy up and down like he may combust at any moment.

His vision sprouted a few spots, teasing just beyond his peripheral.

“Colonel!”

Roy shook himself, blinking to remove the spots and other… unkind imagines involving gold hair and too much red from the back of his eyes.

Ed was giving him a rather unguarded look that he wasn’t really used to seeing. It fell into the uncanny valley, looking just slightly wrong on Ed’s usually calculating, choleric features. He was back to the closed off look a blink later, backpedaling away. “Geez, you phase out or something?” He questioned.

The older man squared his shoulders. “Just tired is all.”

Ed frowned at him, opening his mouth to say something. Roy managed to beat him to it my a micro-second. “We should go.”

He strode forward, leaving Ed in the dark with casual indifference.

“Wha—wait a second!” The kid cried, scrambling haphazardly to catch up. “You didn’t answer me!” He wavered with each step, but somehow managed to keep up with Roy’s long strides and, admittedly needlessly brisk pace. The library wasn’t going anywhere, after all.

But having the younger alchemist focus on his footing rather than what Roy refused to say was a handy way of dodging the question.

“And _you_ didn’t answer me before.” He reminded the blond. “We’re alchemists. Equivalent Exchange.”

Ed glared up at him. “Dammit.”

Roy grinned back and made use of his gloveless hand, proudly presenting his middle finger.

Ed whipped out a dirty look so vicious it looked like it was painted for the face of a moody, age-tattered man who might huddle at the back of a bar and dole out bad advice.

Which, he supposed, was still in the spirit of Ed’s personality. And just like that, the discomfort lifted its hold, letting the beads of sweat dotted around his face dissipate and their the conversation lull into something simpler.

Roy would get the truth out of Ed sooner or later, that much he knew. Whether it would be in the silence of a more personal moment or forcibly removed via mandatory reports, printed in a chicken-scratch font. He also knew that Ed would return the favour and badger him for the next ten years if he didn’t answer.

And those ten years would come.

He wasn’t about to let something so small and comparatively trivial be what kills either of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, good evening! It's that time of the week again and I'm super excited because now is when all the clues start kicking in...mystery...  
> Hope you've enjoyed this weeks slice of trauma and GUESS WHAT! Once again there's some beautiful art that you should take a look at cause its jaw dropping: [1](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/633702507348197376/so-this-is-yet-another-fan-art-for-liathgrays) [2](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/633427701283323905/this-chapter-made-me-mix-of-emotions-yall-let-me)
> 
> 20-8-5 1-18-20-9-3-12-5


	10. Coyotes and Kites

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Description of injuries/ broken bones. Description of bodies. Disassociation. Brief description of nightmare.

Time had certainly been passing.

Ed could feel it practically slipping between the cracks. Skipping away like it didn’t care, entirely apathetic and insensitive to his plight. Really, how long had it been?

Could’ve been a day or so. Maybe more. It was weighing on him, all the time and the suffocating darkness, but it wasn’t _nearly_ as heavy as it was on the Colonel.

The Colonel, who was looking rather ghostly in the eerie light, long shadows being cast over his face like a mask carved from wood. Ed had kept his mouth firmly shut all the time they’d been trekking along, not quiet willing to subject himself to hearing… well, _anything_ from the older man.

Especially not his voice,

The two occasions where Mustang spoke—that’s right, only _two,_ what a shocker—Ed nearly gave himself mental whiplash. He couldn’t even register what was said beyond—

—the—

— _voice_.

_Ed didn’t flinch._

Mustang fell silent when Ed once again snapped him, acting against his own better judgement and survival instincts. He, in as harsh a tone as he could muster, told the older alchemist to screw off and glared at the walls. It worked.

Ed busied himself cooking up theories on the Tellers, swan diving into his own pond of ideas with train tracks of thoughts bridging and criss crossed above and below. He let himself get lost in the side of his mind that wasn’t still shaking with horror and hate and fear. He pushed that as far down as it would go, stamping out any inklings of its return.

He focused on logic and nothing more, revisiting his theoretical circle on how to suck ether up from the ground without using up every energy reserve in your own body.

Ed watched the shadows on the walls and pretended that the humanoid silhouettes were perfectly normal. Yes, even the fact that they had mouths and teeth. Yes, even that fact that he swore their eyes glowed. Yes, even fact that that their limbs moved on their own accord.

Maybe it was uncomfortable and haunting, but it was better than having to hear Mustang say anything.

(That might've been a joke once. He would've said it as a tease. Now it was horrifyingly _true_.)

It was better then having to explain himself.

But now there came the issue that the Colonel was probably seeing spots, three-quarters asleep and stumbling every now and again.

Ed swallowed his apprehension and breached the still air, only ruined by footsteps, with a pretty bold statement: “You’re gonna fall over.”

He stared Mustang, whose surefooted pace had gradually fallen to the wayside. Ed wasn’t stupid: he’d done the math and there was no way that the older man _hadn’t_ left East City in the middle of the night. Either that or he’d broken a bucket full of laws and burned through gas like a starved animal going feral over a chunk of food.

Even then, it would have taken a good half day or so to roll on in to Blackwell Springs. The theory was compounded by the fact that he fit the bill _visibly_ too.

Mustang’s shoulder were slumped and he kept switching what hand held their shoddy little torch, his arms lowering further with each trade off.His dark eyes were clouded, glassy and constantly being curtained by heavy blinks.

Mustang looked dead tired and his ego would cost them stealth in spades.

Or, like, the whole deck.

“I’m fine,” He replied with an astonishing lack of self awareness, a frog in his throat and all. For the millionth time, Ed reminded himself that he could _see_ Mustang. That it was definitely him.

Because no one could fake a whole person. There wasn’t a face to match the voice and it salvaged his sanity from the sinking wreck of his own mind.

Mustang really didn’t seem to notice that his own eyes were half closed and squinting through the light as though it were a nuisance rather than, like, the thing that was allowing them to see and navigate these stupid aqueducts.

Ed wondered if he could manage to stick his foot out and trip Mustang to keep him from keeling over mid-insult. That’s what was going to happen if the idiot kept on walking.

Ed had to slap his own hand down to keep from poking at the older man because some fearful little part was still telling him to not provoke the Colonel. Don’t give him any reason to make good on the threats. Don't give him a reason to come back.

“You look like shit, Colonel.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Then take a minute.” Ed stressed. Mustang didn’t stop, but his stance wavered.

He kept his eyes trained forward, only acknowledging Ed with a glacially cold, slow response. “To do _what_?”

“Sleep.” Ed told him without missing a beat.

He wasn’t stupid _._

Ed was seeing all the signs of bone-deep exhaustion riddling the older; he’d swung his bat at the wasps nest of sleep deprivations and received ten million stinging symptoms. It was covering him head to toe and Ed was starting to actually kind of worry he’d collapse from the sheer gravity of staying awake. Burnout—internal, from all the mental gymnastic Mustang’s mind had surely spent hours preforming—was a factor too that was sinking it’s teeth in rather rapidly.

But _god_ was he stubborn.

Ed couldn’t call him on it really, he liked his glass house just fine, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put his lovely skills of annoying the Colonel to use and beat down his pride. He did it more cautiously than he might’ve otherwise, eyes darting to the man's hands on occasion.

Often.

Constantly.

They remained gloveless and gunless. One was tightly grasping the torch, the other swinging at his side, limp and mute. It was a relief to see each time.

Maybe Al had been right when he said they were similar, yet here Ed was, silently fuming at Mustang’s cool response. The man shrugged lightly. “That false-mayor might still be looking for us.”

“ _Might_.”

“There’s no point in risking it.”

It didn’t sound like a lie, but Ed saw his jaw twitch and he squinted, searching Mustang’s face for indicators. It was mostly blank, which was to be expected.

He was in the military, after all, and deception was the name of the game. But the lack of rest was working in Ed’s favour, so he caught the quick twinge under his left eye and how his free hand flared out for a moment.

“Then I’ll keep watch.” Ed said resolutely. He didn’t even wait for a yes or no, just put his back to the wall, lifted his broken foot and dropped to the floor, grinning cheerfully.

It sent a hot sliver of iron right through his bones and they shifted on impact. He swallowed a mouthful of swears.

Mustang took notice and raised an eyebrow. “You’re worse off than I am.” Sincerity or condescension? It’s all the same.

It sounded the same.

_Stop it. It wasn’t even him. Stop._

Ed sneered to cover the panic, malice over misgivings. “You look like you haven’t slept since I called you.”

The older scoffed, casting down an incredulous look. “What, and you did?”

Oh, would you look at that! A little bit of honesty. Even if it was technically not an admission, Mustang certainly didn’t make an attempt to deny the accusation.

“Yes.”

“Call me crazy, but I don’t believe you.”

“Crazy.” Ed practically chirped.

What could he say? Getting on Mustang’s nerves was entertaining and he was one of the only people who could match Ed in an argument blow for blow. It was less about actually antagonizing one another and more because it was fun. Juvenile and dumb, absolutely. But fun.

It was, anyways.

Before all this shit.

Something cried at him to back off. It told him that he was playing with fire. It was stupid to piss someone else off especially when he was already hurt and Mustang was literally holding a fucking _torch_ and his ears started to ring without warning.

Ed cringed, biting his tongue and trying to corral the nerves that spiked and wailed at every goddamn pin drop. He managed to get it into a flimsy box, tucked away in a desolate corner of him mind reserved for the moments when he managed to turn off the alchemy side of his brain. It would burst out soon enough, but would have to do for now.

Through the turn of phrase, Ed still watched his footing, keeping from crossing over a certain line in case Mustang snapped. In case his voice took a sharp turn and Ed was thrown back by hours into _the fucking ce—_

Mustang gave him a flat look, a frown that sang of scolding and a glassy shine of annoyance glazing his eyes. Ed had conveniently forgotten that, even exhausted and numbed, Mustang was ever-sharp and observant.

His plan was starting to backfire, so Ed scrambled to fix it. Hopefully whatever spilled out wouldn’t land him on Mustang’s shit list.

Well, okay. Rephrase.

Hopefully it wouldn’t land him any _higher_ on Mustang’s shit list.

"Yeah, you're a bad liar." The Colonel decided on.

“I’m telling the truth!” He defended. “Mostly…”

“Fullmetal.” He warned lowly.

_Ed didn’t flinch._

There was no flash of light or a loud bang and the voice didn’t make his stomach drop. It didn’t.

He cleared the smoke and haze and fear, fear _, fear_ from his mind before responding. “I _did_. Technically it counts.”

Mustang blanched, eyes wide and going a bit stiff. Perhaps not Ed’s finest moment, but really, lying wasn’t his strong suit. He could lie by _omission_ easily, skipping through fallacies and keeping his mouth firmly shut, but when it came to cobbling together fiction from fact, he tended to trip up.

Mustang, on the other hand, probably had a degree in the theory of being a manipulative dickhead and minored in the fine art of painting his tongue silver, and Ed had stupidly brought himself onto the older man’s field. He was an amateur stepping into a professional match. Like an idiot.

Give him alchemic equations fit for a professor any day; _this_ was impossible. 

“What the hell does that mean?” Mustang all but shouted, still standing over Ed and looking a little frazzled. Ed might’ve laughed if he wasn’t about to have his half-truths torn to shreds. He might’ve laughed if… _if…_

_Stop it. Stop it. You’re fine. Nothing happened._

But Mustang was standing over him, glowering and gripping the flaming torch, expression severe and looking... mad.

Ed breathed, in through his nose and out in a shallow puff, masking the fearful escapees that had hopped the fence he threw up in his head with phoney annoyance.

“It wasn’t really, uh, _voluntary_ sleep.” Ed winced at the look the Colonel gave him.

“Don’t tell me—“

“They kinda… knocked me out?” Ed admitted, offering a weak, awkward smile as though that would lessen the blow.

Ed braced for impact, shutting his eyes and ready for the next ten minutes of getting a very ill-timed lecture. It would leave them both with headaches but he’d walked right into this like a big idiot and god now it was blowing up in his face and the jerk was probably going to start _yelling_ —

He heard a heavy, cloth-padded _fwump_.

“Oh for gods sake." Mustang breathed. "Anything else you wanna clue me in on?” Ed cracked open an eye and saw him sitting a few feet away, the light clattering to the ground so he could cradle his face in both hands, heaving a _heavy-as-ones-beating-heart_ sigh.

At least he didn’t shout again.

At least he didn’t sound ready to set Ed on fire.

Or shoot him.

Mustang pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes screwed shut and head ducked low. A small wisp of dust and dirt floated up from the ground, displaced from its home. Ed watched it rise up in a spiral before descending, coating both himself and Mustang in a thin blanket of age-old filth.

Still better than tar. He dusted off his hands, feeling the fine grains between his fingers as they rolled together and fell away. Like paper, it peeled off. Or skin. Or hair.

He blinked back in to the conversation, slowly offering up a response. “Hey, at least I got _some_ shuteye.” Ed tried to play it off.

“By getting beat up?!”

Nothing happened. He didn’t lean back at the harsh tone or feel the need to jump away. The harsh, demanding tone was absolutely fine.

Nothing happened at all.

_He didn’t..._

“Yes.” The blond told him, sounding clipped with a paper thin shield of neutrality thrown over his features. Mustang was just staring at him, to the point where it was getting a bit unsettling.

His eyes darted across Ed’s face, lingering on the matching bruises resting beside his eye and the burn tattooed along his cheekbone.

With little warning, Mustang leaning forward, staring at Ed’s face and searching his eyes for something, frantic and critical at the same time. “How do you know you’re not concussed?” He demanded.

Ed shrunk back, giving the older a hard shove back, pushing his hand away. “Educated guess.” He spat.

“You’re gonna be the death of me.” Mustang shook his head, disbelieving. Ed bristled, frowning at the _entirely_ unwarranted accusation.

( _Death of you? Ironic considering that the same voice had ranted and shouted and seethed about—_ )

Ed shooed the voice in his head away, wielding his proverbial shoe at the thing menacingly before matching the incredulousness upon Mustang’s face and hunching forward. “I’m not saying take a day long snooze, just a half hour power nap so you’re not standing at a forty-five degree angle.”

“I _was not—_ “ The older started indigently.

“Yeah you were.”

They glared, gold against black in a battle for the ages that took place over the span of fifteen seconds and left more wounds on Mustang’s ego than if Hawkeye were to use him for target practice. Ed won by a mile and felt triumph swell in a childish flood, all the way up to his face to deliver a smug grin and hopefully bringing a little more colour back to his face.

Mustang relented, his hands skimming along the ground as he sat forward. “Fine,” The expression he wore almost made Ed want to retract his previous statement, “but on one condition.”

“What?” His suspicion climbed skyward. This was going to backfire again, Ed could almost taste it in the air.

“Let me take a look at your ankle first.” And _there_ was the free fall.

Ed closed his eyes, inhaling deeply to ignore the miserably nagging of his fractured bone, pleading with him to allow Mustang to help him. He let the air out in a quick huff, blowing the hair that had strayed to lay over his eyes.

The burns on his arm were still overheating and his face buzzing with warmth from the bruises. He couldn’t forget about the streak of bright red skin along the opposite cheek, curtesy of his first match. It was all reminding him that, even with the slivers of extra rest he’d pilfered via literal unconsciousness, he was still _hurt_.

Ed wanted to argue that it wasn’t life threatening but that didn’t really matter.

He waited too long to ask for help before, and it landed him in a cellar. This could result in nerve damage or… no, he was not going to lose another limb. Not over something this stupid and petty.

The blond wilted against the wall and carefully extended his leg outwards, grimacing even as it rested flat on the floor.

“You’re the worst.” Ed grumbled.

“Thanks.”

“No, really.” The younger replied in a perfectly manicured deadpan tone. “I mean that. You suck. I hope someone pokes holes in your shoes.”

“Very flattering.” Mustang situated himself beside Ed’s leg and started to tug at the dirty cloth that made for a poor cast.

He managed to unfurl the first knot that Ed had blindly tied, his expression melting into something grave. There were two more lumpy, uneven twists that Mustang had to work through before he could actually start to unravel the haphazardly cobbled together bandages. A touch carelessly, in Ed’s opinion.

He grit his teeth and tried not to let his eyes go too glassy, holding a stream of curses and yelps at the back of his throat where they began to pool.

But that was a bit of a pipe dream.

In less than a minute his breath had become shallower, more uneven and the back of his neck felt sticky. His chest seemed to collapse inward.

_He’s trying to help. Calm down._

_It’s Mustang. It’s not… you’re fine._

Ed’s eyes had shut at some point, screwed up so he could only see greenish swirls refracting into his vision. His stomach started to clench in a warning that he was treading on thin ice right as something jostled him.

Ed saw spots and his breath caught. The fluid strings of swears flooded around his mouth, making his lungs fight for proper air, whittling his word choice down to one, choked sound.

“Wait."

Mustang sighed, his patience ebbing away. “Fullmetal, you can’t just—“

Ed tried again, a slight shake invading his voice. “ _Wait_.”

He wanted to cringe because it sounded pathetic in his own ears. It wasn’t a pressing, mortal wound. His ankle had snapped and that’s all it was. It was just a broken bone. He’d scratched ad struggled his way through far worse.

Of course it was going to hurt but this just felt ridiculous. As though living razors had been released under his skin, fire and ice mashed together in an overload of pain. Ed could feel the bones grinding against one another from the inside and his chest seized every time Mustang so much as shifted the torn up pieces of fabric.

There must have been something in Ed’s voice that got the older man’s attention because suddenly he glanced up and, even as god awful and tired as he looked, Mustang suddenly seemed alarmed.

He jerked back, his hands hovering inches above where they’d been and the guilt came pouring over his face in a tidal wave.

Ed barely had time to see it, he was too busy trying to breathe through the spasms that were ripping through the surrounding muscle, biting down on his lip so hard that it busted open with a flick of blood.

“You said it didn’t hurt,” Mustang’s voice was low, soft in a frightening sort of way that meant he was either going to fall into a lake of self blame or be once again very frustrated with the younger, potentially blowing a fuse once Ed wasn’t listing against the jagged stone.

And then Ed probably would well and truly panic.

“I thought we established…” His arm joined the fray in some kind of sympathetic agony, flaring up in a bright lick of freezer burn that crawled into his fingers and up to his elbow. “That I’m a _bad liar_.” Ed ground out.

Mustang’s mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything. He just waited for it to be over, providing a tiny modicum of privacy by turning his head to the side but still clearly watching. Or rather _listening_ for signs that it was getting better or worse.

It felt like forever, but eventually his throat loosened, the churning in his stomach dying down. The gripping blaze slowly became more tolerable and the spasms subsided. “Okay.” Ed breathed. “I’m okay.”

He made a vague gesture to Mustang, still drinking the air in calmer, more calculated intakes.

“You’re clearly not,” Why did he have to sound like that? Of all times, Mustang had to pick _now_ to start sounding like he cared?

_Do you really think that a—_

Ed brought his right arm up, pressing the back of his hand against his cheek and trying to focus on the blessedly cool metal instead of the stupid, bad, awful look he was getting from Mustang because it was too damn regretful and sympathetic. “Just hurry up and get it over with.” Ed wiped away the trail of blood from the split in his lip, turning to spit the iron-flavoured stuff from where it had puddled under his tongue and between his teeth.

“Sorry,” Mustang muttered, but he got back to work. This time he was overly cautious, gingerly handling every motion as though Ed was made of thin glass; like he was entirely too breakable.

The carefulness paid off and Ed felt leagues better in the span of just a few breaths.

The older alchemist studied the break. Ed risked a quick look and regretted it immediately. Looked like someone had twisted a dolls foot the wrong way and left it hanging from a string.

“It’s pretty misaligned.” Mustang sounded clinical and detached, like how he typically did when there was a more unsettling case being pawned off to him.

Ed laughed tightly. “Wow, I hadn’t noticed.”

“It’s going to heal wrong.” His eyes narrowed, growing more cold than before.

Well that sounded… not good. Mustang’s eyes never lifted, but his hand did, and he muttered to himself: “I might be able to—“

His foot shifted. The _bones_ shifted, clicking against each other in a sharp motion so quick he didn’t even register it happening at first and then there was a absolute roar of fire and _holy fucking hell—_

The world went sideways and his vision blotted, dimming into literally nothing. He heard static.

He felt static.

Everything was numb and everything was hypersensitive. His body was it’s own private oxymoron until—

—Ed blinked.

Something must’ve happened because once his eyes peeled back open, Ed was on the ground with a fresh wave of _hurt_ coursing through him. On... the ground.

That wasn't right. A sharp jab drove through his forehead.

Ow.

Ed tried to get his arms under hims but, yeah, no. The world was still spinning wildly and he felt sick.

What a great time to memorize the dirt. Dark, spotted with pebbles and illuminated by a little flush of flames. Cool. This is exactly how he wanted to spend his time.

Ed let his head rest against the frigid ground until the dizziness subsided. He heard swearing, but couldn’t for the life of him make out what exactly was being said. Or _who_.

Which sent him into a brief little panic. Against his better judgment (which was already pretty mediocre, in truth) Ed shoved himself upright. And then proceeded to almost fall back down with a quick flash of relief. Mustang was in the same spot as before peering down at the younger.

No cellar. No jars. No crazy sun bleached scarecrows.

Just a jerk who had managed to paint on a concerned look. It vanished as soon as Ed’s eyes cleared up, zeroing in on Mustang. The blond blinked the dust and fog from his eyes.

Mustang shuffled forward, kneeling on the grime-crusted ground and probably ruining the knees of his pants. Hah. Sucker.

He held out a hand to keep Ed steady, but it was slapped away, leaning away and, more carefully this time, pushing himself up. The burns tugged at his skin, feeling warm and like they were covered in sandpaper. That was going to be a problem.

Mustang watched him warily. “You alright?”

“ _Fuck_. Ow.”

He took a moment to shake the stars from his eyes before his gaze slid over to the Colonel. Then darted down to his ankle. His ankle that was no longer curved at an odd angle and had been re-wrapped with what felt like metal rods to form a splint, the scarring of transmutation bristling against his skin.

Transmutation. Wait a goddamn second.

“You—!” Ed, turned and punched Mustang as hard as he could, a solid hit to the shoulder that probably wouldn’t bruise, but would definitely hurt for the time being. Mustang didn’t do more than rock back with the force. “Give me some warning next time asshole!” Ed barked.

“I didn’t think you’d pass out!” The older fired back.

Ed scowled at him viciously. “Still— _ow.”_

“At least you won’t have to get it re-broken and set.”

“You better take the power nap of a lifetime cause that was not an equal trade _at all_.”

* * *

As predicated, Mustang was out the second his eyes closed and Ed breathed a sigh of relief. He could understand _why_ , but having the older man looking over his shoulder and trying to weasel out information was causing burnout. Ed’s facade taking up more energy than he had to spare.

Mustang wasn’t trying to be a prick, at least, Ed didn’t _think_ he was, but he seemed intent on pushing the issue. Twice now he’d cajoled the blond into letting him help and sure, in and of itself that’s not bad, but it still felt… wrong.

Ed still hadn’t fully shaken the anxiety from before, and every time the older man spoke, he _almost_ flinched.

Never fully. Of course not. But... _almost_.

It was ridiculous: Marcel had barely done anything, just put a few unpleasant images in his head and used the Colonel’s voice like a springboard.

But still, he felt a small, instinctive jump yank at his muscles each time Mustang said something out of the blue of moved a little too fast or his tone shifted one way or he did literally _anything_.

He’d been trying to control it; compartmentalize until it didn’t feel so disturbingly wrong anymore. It still did.

Ed had never been afraid of Mustang.

Not really.

Not when he threatened court martial or shouted, not when he lectured Ed into another dimension of boredom.

Back, years ago, right after the attempt at human transmutation, when Mustang had stormed the Rockbell household and pulled a despondent, almost unrecognizable version of Ed out of his wheelchair, he hadn’t felt afraid.

Just guilty.

Now he was, though.

He couldn’t stop himself from wilting back, reflexive and seemingly beyond his control, despite the flourish of dull embarrassment it brought with it. Luckily the older alchemist was too out of it to fully take stock and Ed was trying to get it under control.

Key word was _trying_.

Even the occasional, unintelligible mumble from Mustang as he slept was making Ed snap to attention, his heart pounding and the rest of him begging to get up and run.

It was all so stupid.

It hadn’t even been _Mustang_ in that stupid goddamn room and Ed _knew_ that. Even without light, he’d kept his head collected enough to break Marcel’s hand because he knew that no matter how perfect the imitation was, that is couldn’t be Mustang.

Ed knew it then and knew it now.

So why the _hell_ was he so skittish?!

His one saving grace was that he couldn’t find a way to match the voice filled with malice and vitriol to the Colonel’s face. He was a dipstick, sure, but he’d never sounded hateful like Marcel had made him out to be.

There wasn’t a face to match the voice.

Ed could hardly connect the idea of fear to Mustang. It just didn’t line up, despite how powerful the older was. Ed had seen firsthand that he _was_ powerful, but not dangerous. Not in a way that warranted his constant side-eying or his skin being left behind with how fast he jerked away. Mentally, some part of them started lumping Mustang in with Teller and his little team.

Because Marcel had used his voice? Maybe. Hopefully.

Mustang was an egotistical, overbearing, incredibly annoying person. He was one part patient and two parts easy to rile up, but he wasn’t _like them._

Right…?

_Do you really think that a soldier—_

_“Get a grip.”_ Ed hissed under his breath. The sound leaped through the channels and shot back through his head like… like a _bullet._

Like a blank bullet thats only purpose was to scare him bad enough that his hands shook and his eyes were flashing from the light; that made his hearing short out and his body jolt back so violently he’d knocked against the wall.

Even now it felt stupid.

Humiliating and awful and stupid. Even if it had only been for that split second, Ed had believed it. He’d fallen for the little magic trick and it was costing him so much more than he ever would’ve expected. It was made all the worse by the simple, undeniable, indisputable fact that nothing had _happened_.

The single strike that had been doled out wasn’t even hard enough to bruise.

He’d just been talking.

And talking.

And _talking_.

Ed pinched his arm hard, drawing himself out of the daze and looking for anything to distract himself.

His gaze was halfway vacant, but he tried anyways. All the presented itself was the endless, winding stretch of tunnels that faded into a void no less than five feet out. The shadows teased at the edges, chewing along the walls and reaching out towards him. Ed didn’t even had the energy to be frightened by the idea. They could drag him away for all he cared, so long as it brought his mind elsewhere.

Of course, no one was really there. They were shadows and nothing more—a series of grooves cut through the light by the uneven walls and build up of mold that was stuck to the ceiling in dark patches.

He was alone.

Mustang was still passed out against the wall, half slumped to the ground and looking… rather _dead_ , honestly.

Pale and exhausted. The terrible lighting did nothing to alleviate the image of a body in the place of a person and suddenly a new fear cropped up inside the younger alchemist. There was no warning.

No buildup or polite _coming through_. The feeling just drove a fist into his stomach and the air left his lungs.

It hit him harder than it ought to.

(Like a bullet.)

What if that how this ends?

Forty years is a long time. Surely he and Mustang weren’t the first who didn’t just sit back and let themselves be hacked to pieces. Surely there would be other methods to stop them from escaping. The Robinsons had been without injury and with a car and they still had their heads held under the inky blank lake and choked on fumes.

They’d died.

People are far more fragile than most people realize but Ed had seen it. He had seen it as a child, tainting his life with rot and death at every turn. People were fragile.

He wasn’t special. Neither was Mustang.

Ed glanced back over at the older man. He really did look like a corpse situated in a little nest of filth and darkness. What if that's how this ends? With both of them pale and unmoving? Sunk down to the bottom of the tar pits and their bodies ripped apart and stuffed into holes. Grief and anxiety crashed down over Ed so viciously it made him shudder. His chest was rigid, warning him to breath shallowly lest he wanted his newly-plaster-constructed rips to break into shards.

It wasn’t even that hard to imagine.

His breath caught in his throat for a moment. “Drowned in the tar pits.” He whispered bitterly into the open air. “Bodies not recovered.”

The headlines would be sad and tragic. The townsfolk would mourn to themselves and no one would care. A select few people would shed tears. Al should shake and try to do the impossible and cry through a suit of armour.

He remembered the bodies. The lone chunk of meat that sat underneath a halo of mushrooms, or the hand that decayed as a ring still circled its finger. The watery fluids that had spilled out and the overwhelming _smell_. His mind wandered back to Mr. Robinson with tar soaked through his skin and eyes milky with sickness. The way his flesh had twitched and twisted as something ate away at it, the wet squelching of a living thing tearing up the tissue, crawling over his teeth and breaking open his jaw and how horribly similar it looked to—

— _his mother._

The scorched skin and the random spasms, peeling layers of hair and skin, eyelids plastered open, or maybe they’d just been ripped off.

How funny would it be if that’s how Ed ended up at the end of all of this? Poetic? Ironic?

The unrelenting terror of it all gripped him. Blackwell Springs could be their tomb and unnatural decay would leave them as nothing but vague memories.

Both of the anxieties raged against each other. Which would win? The sound of his own commanding officer or being six feet under?

Both.

It was both.

They _tied_ and Ed ducked his head down to keep himself from seeing any more flashes of death or the muzzle of a gun.

* * *

So maybe Ed had a point.

Maybe the sleep was sorely needed.

That didn’t make the sleep necessarily _pleasant_. Far from it.

He dreamed of static and fire. He saw a warm image of a house being set on fire and Alistair’s head being boiled from the inside out. Roy apparently had a more active imagination than he thought, because he’d never considered what it might look like to set the air inside someones lungs ablaze.

It was a disturbing, overzealous and gore soaked sight, even just within his mind. That was the part of his snapshot, skittering dreams that he didn’t have a problem with.

The salty gusts heat and blush of scotch marks across his enemies face was, to his dismay, welcomed.

It was the other part that made sleep feel unbearable.

The resounding, persistent scream that hadn’t even been real. It took to his mind like a duck to water and promptly ruined the ecosystem. An invasive species, one might call it. He could attest that it felt like one.

Roy was poked awake after about half an hour of half nightmarish dozing and he felt infinitely better, but he’d inconveniently been pulled midway through listening to a plea from the younger alchemist, stamped onto his mind like a searing brand. It spilled and looped, loud and uncoordinated. He couldn’t cover his ears to block out the harsh and ragged cries. He couldn’t move beyond a single spot in the nightmare, both feet sunk down into a black puddle while the voice grew louder.

The words were mixed and blended together, until one rose above the rest.

_Help._

Roy shot upright, his eyes turning to Ed and blinking. The blond shrank back with a frown.

Roy stared.

“You—“ He blinked, slow and deliberate.

“You’re okay.” He said dumbly.

Ed raised an eyebrow. “Relatively speaking, yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“Quit looking at me like I’m a ghost then.”

They started on soon after that.

His eyes were clearer and sounds echoed sharply. It was like a layer of gauzy curtains had been lifted and suddenly his mind wasn’t quite as sluggish.

Which also meant that he, subsequently, could see Ed much better. His movements, his expression, the notes in his voice that were buried by layers of apathy or smugness, each new sound topping the others like a dense acrylic painting with an indecisive artist.

Roy had known that his ankle was outright broken pretty early on; sprains are still an inconvenience, but not to the point of nearly blacking out when someone dares to try unwrapping it. Which Ed had done.

And now Roy was able to actually see the limp in all of its grimacing, unsteady glory. It slowly became more and more painful to watch.

Roy took a deep breath and prepared to make his offer, knowing damn well it would probably be rejected.

“I could carry—“

“I would literally rather die.”

Well, it was worth a shot.

He almost asked why Ed hadn’t made himself a crutch yet, before a glimpse of scorched skin remind him that it was pretty hard to hold anything, let along put weight onto burned skin. A cane would probably help, but if Roy had to take a wild gander, he’d guess Ed would try to trip him if he suggested it.

As someone who valued not being concussed, Roy thought to keep his mouth sealed and save himself the migraine.

“I think this is it.” Ed stopped in his tracks, looking straight up at the ceiling.

Roy followed his gaze, bring the torch up to scan the surface. The blond pointed. “An outline. Right there.”

It was only about two feet wide, equally long and was crusted shut with age. “We’re a good ways down still.” Roy reminded. “Either that thing is going to be insanely heavy, or there’s a latter.”

“A second door, then. Probably something that can blend into the area.” Ed craned for a better view, his head tilting at an owlish angle that looked like it shouldn’t be possible.

Roy hummed. “Cellar doors, or maybe some kind of manhole.”

Ed squinted upwards, his eyebrows knitting together in thought. The door was absent of any kind of hook or knob to pull on, and the ceiling was high enough that it was out of reach.

“Give me a lift,” The younger kept his eyes trained in place, drifting in a quick circle, looking for any nicks in the stone, but as far as Roy could see, this passage hadn’t been used in ages. Which made sense, seeing as the common folk of Blackwell might not even know about these tunnels.

If they did, there was a good chance superstition had a them in a steely grip and no one wanted to be responsible for dredging up the nasties that dwelled in the interwoven channels, whether it be rats or ghouls.

Roy clasped his hands together, acting like a sentient step-stool for Ed to ram his elbow into the door, with dust and dirt raining down over them. It took two tries for the hinges to groan and swing open.

There was a shaft leading upwards, vanishing in a narrow slip of shadows with rusty metal rungs marching up along one side. Ed grabbed hold of the nearest one and pulled himself up into the passage while Roy arranged the torch against a stretch of flat stone, raised above the soil that threatened to snuff it out.

He looked up to find a metal hand being offered to him, with Ed apparently finding a way to hang upside-down from one of the higher bars, his metal leg locked in place around a twisted length of the latter to keep himself balanced.

“You better not drop me.” Roy warned.

Ed smirked down at him. “Don’t give me any ideas.”

He hauled the older man up with a surge of energy that must have been bubbling away in some secret reserve.

It was only a little surprising that Ed had the strength to help him to the rungs. If it had been his flesh arm, it would’ve been freakish, but automail packed a rather big punch when it came to lifting capabilities. From what he knew about the Rockbells, quality was to be expected.

The only real disadvantage to this method of sneaking up was that it forced them to be shoved back into sightlessness. Roy felt his way to each new bar, minding his footing as he climbed and occasionally stepping over the rungs that felt a little too wobbly, or the ones that ground with the hiss of rust beneath his soles. He couldn’t see Ed, but he could hear the way he was relying on his automail limbs, grabbing onto a bar a few steps or so overhead, and yanking the rest of himself up all at once, making guesswork of where his foot landed and causing Roy’s nerves to spike.

He was glad Ed had gone up first though because if he, for whatever reason, missed his mark, Roy could keep him from breaking his skull on the tunnel floors.

Roy heard a quiet curse from above. “What is it?” He asked.

“I owe you a hundred cenz.”

Roy blinked up into the void, the physical manifestation of confusion itself rolling off his shoulder. “Pardon?”

“It’s a manhole. I was betting on a false streetlight.”

They clambered out and into the open. The air was shockingly clay-free. It late into the night, stars glaring down at them with moon the size of a wood-sliver hanging by it’s ears in a wild grin. The shaft spat them out just across from the library.

Roy briefly wondered if it was the same evening he'd arrived on, or if another day had slipped past. 

Problem for later. Right now he needs to focus.

Roy eased the metal cover back into place, his alertness cranked to eleven and a half. “We could make a break for it,” Ed whispered. “I know that all of the doors lock and there should be a phone somewhere to ring for backup."

“Is there an entrance around the back?”

The blond nodded. “Windows, yeah. They go right to the archives.”

“I can deal with the lamps then.” The transmutation circle was easy to recall, muscle memory letting him draw it at the speed of sound and with the street being as clean as they were, it took only a smudge of mud to trace out the skeletal form.

Ed raised an eyebrow at him quizzically. “And the front doors aren’t an option because…?”

“That would be too noticeable.” He eyed the ornate wood from afar, only able to make out a few of the details along the trimming. Roy turned to the younger alchemist. “We don’t know exactly how many people they've got under their thumb. Better to be safe.”

“Not a lot of people live in town, they’ve got homes by their plots of land.” Ed pointed out. “They’re weird, but they’re not... like _that_.”

Maybe the kid just had some kind of vendetta against nice things and wanted to teach the intricately carved doors an unearned lesson in getting kicked open. Maybe that’s why Ed insisted on nearly sending the office entrance off it’s hinges every other week. Could just be Ed’s insistence on melodrama, though.

“Still. I’d rather not take the chance.”

Ed crossed his arms with a bitter sigh, but didn’t protest any further. The array activated with a low murmur of energy that waltzed through the air carelessly, coaxing the oxygen away from the glass panelling that shielded the lamps wick from wind and rain.

He had to be careful that it was targeted, making sure to not overdo it otherwise the breath would be sucked out of both his and Ed’s lungs and leave them unconscious until the air pressure returned to normal. Roy focused his attention on the two lights that sat parallel to one another, brightening the road, chasing away the cover of night that he desperately needed right now. Roy could feel the slow crawling of the oxygen, leeched away from the area surrounding the lamps.

The lights flickered out. He tapped Ed once on the shoulder. He noted the small twitch of the kid's shoulders.

“Let’s go.”

It only took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the winding twists of shrouds and grey tones that made up the town, shining with a sickly, yellow tinged silver spat down over them by the moon. Roy ducked behind the library, one hand brushing the brick wall and Ed following at his heels.

With a clap, Ed melted the glass into a hole and broke off the wooden cross that held each one in place. They were low enough to the ground that slipping inside wasn’t much of an issue, though Roy insisted he go first.

“You landing on a broken foot isn’t going to help anything,” He used every ounce of authority in his body, directing it all into the words and watching as Ed’s stubborn expression budged by exactly a fifth of an inch.

“Automail.” Was his harsh response. Roy drew in a deep breath to keep from shouting, his hands rising and falling with his lungs.

“Would it kill you to accept some help?” He asked snidely. Ed didn’t dignify the question with an answer, looking to the side like the irritable, petulant child that he was but still waiting until after Roy to jump through the frame. He only stumbled a little, catching himself before using the wrong limb to balance.

The older alchemist had to jam his hands into his pocket to keep from reaching out.

Roy cast him a glance. “What exactly are we looking for?”

The younger alchemist ignored him and disappeared behind the nearest shelf, filled to the brim with papers and folders. Some of them were pure white, some rat-bitten, yellowed with age and grease stained.

He could hear Ed, his weight causing soft streaks from the floors, but he had thoroughly hidden himself by way of having chronic tunnel vision. It was possible that he forgot Roy was even there; the Elric’s were bookworms before they were people, and they were motivated before that.

“Found it.”

Roy almost rammed into a wall with how violently he jumped, whirling to find a terribly amused looking Ed standing there and having made no sound to indicate his approach. Even with the god awful squeaking of the wood panels, somehow he’d kept quiet _just_ to scare the living daylights out of Roy.

“You did that on purpose.” He said with a withering look.

Ed feigned innocence as though he’d been born to wear the look, perfectly tailored to his face. The brat. “I would _never_.”

Roy huffed while Ed had the time of his life, even adorned with a thick veneer of burns over his person and a bone so badly cracked it had made Roy’s stomach twist, smiling into the face of their presently horrific situation.

Because of course he did.

He was dragged towards one of the many identical cabinets. “Help me move this.”

He opened his mouth to, for the millionth time, ask _why_ , but the suddenly severe expression Ed has adopted made him pause.

All the kid had said was that he had a hunch, and Roy, not wanting to fill the space between them with any more animosity after Ed greeted him with flying fists, had gone along. He didn’t know why they were really here, but he _apparently_ had enough faith in the younger alchemist to not waste their time or facilitate re-capture.

This was a library, so there would at least be a phone for them to pilfer, right? It wouldn’t be a total bust if whatever Ed was searching for was pointless or non-existent.

“On three.”

They each grasped a corner, digging in their heels as much as they could on the smooth surface. “One… two… _three_.”

They hefted the hulking metal shelf backwards, throwing as much weight behind the shove as possible until it stood a good five feet away from its resting place. Roy zeroed in on a few thin streaks across the floor. “Those are scuff marks.”

Ed looked over his shoulder curiously. “They gonna know we were here?”

The older man shook his head, kneeling down to get a closer look.

There were already deep, dark groves in the wood, scorned by a repeated motion that followed the same path he and Ed had just pushed the shelve in. “No. These ones are old. Like, before now. They’ve moved this thing around before.” He said.

“Figures. Looks like I was right after all.”

He heard a terribly loud crack and the soft roar of splinters being drawn up from wood. He whirled, finding Ed knee-deep in ruining the floor and his mind reeled. “What the _hell_ are you—?!”

“ _Look_.” Ed managed to silence him with a single, incredibly urgent word.

He looked.

And confusion made way for pure, un-policed, uncontrollable shock. It ravaged any part of him that had been functioning correctly and left his hands slack at his sides, jaw asap and eyes wide. The boards that Ed had torn up were already uneven, swollen with what could be passed off as water damage, but the wood itself was far too dry. It was dust ridden and unpolished, barely more than a stray drop of water in the entire three foot area the warped panels took up. Underneath there was a hole.

A massive, gapping hole. Spilling out of it was paper.

There was a hole under the floor. 

He reeled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in probably my favourite stretch of the story right now. There's a lot happening in the background and I don't really expect people to catch all of it cause... this one is pretty dense, but I'm proud that it's there.  
> Oh! Guys!! There's some more immaculate art: [1](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/634317518394277888/fan-art-for-liathgray-s-fic-blackwell) [2](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/634072028166701056/even-tho-this-chapter-was-an-emotional-roller) [3](https://levhach.tumblr.com/post/634597974292496384/that-epic-gamer-moment-when-you-only-have-a)
> 
> 4-15-15-18-19 15-16-5-14 20-23-15 23-1-25-19


	11. Capture the Flag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Discussion of death/ murder. Intrusive thoughts.

Ed was already swinging himself into the chasm by the time Roy regained any sense of coherency.

“What the fuck.” He whispered aloud. Ed didn’t even dignify his shock with a glance, instead bracing his hand—singular, he was still holding the left one carefully and not shifting his wrist more then half a degree—against the floor.

The younger was swallowed up by the hole before he could protest, or even ask for an explanation. He just dropped down, vanishing into the pit. Roy stumbled over, sinking to his knees in a half-shocked half-anxious stupor, peering over the lip cautiously. It was intensely dark. There was no damning crunch of bone or a cry of pain, so Roy held his breath and waited for Ed to say something.

Because yeah, the kid was brash and headstrong, but he wasn’t stupid. He took risks big enough to scare any adult out of their wits, but the younger alchemist knew what he was getting into, one way or another. Roy stared down but the contrast between the grey light of the archives against the inky nothingness made it impossible.

There came the faint, almost dainty rustling of paper.

“Newspapers.” Ed announced. “Hundreds of ‘em.”

The kid’s head re-emerged, gripping a dozen pages and flyers in one hand. They ranged from being almost completely chewed apart by time and rodents to no more than a month old. “Remember how I said that the records were jacked?”

Roy tried to shake himself from the haze of bafflement that had wreathed itself upon his brow. It was stubborn though and made his reply sound pretty muddled, even in his own ears. “Yeah, I looked into it a little.”

The blond laid the pages down, smoothing out some of the creases where the ink was smudged. Ed pointed to a newer article, stamped with big, bolded letters and a photograph of a young couple. They stood side by side, hands clasped and their faces graced with easy smiles, adorned by lacy clothing and warmth. They looked young. Younger than Roy by at least a few years and probably fresh into the world of marriage.

Ed tapped a small section of text under the picture. “One of the things redacted from the archives was that they’ve got tar pits, out a little ways into the forest.” His finger rested on the word itself, declaring that the couple had tragically gotten lost and fallen in.

No bodies were recovered. The article proclaimed it to be an accident and it suddenly came back to Roy that there was an alarming—disturbing, actually—lack of criminal activity. There had been absolutely nothing and _now_ , apparently, there were four decades work of accidents and missteps buried beneath the floorboards and under a lock and key.

Ones that had never made it to Eastern Command. Or Central for that matter. Hughes would have found them.  
Roy’s mouth was pressed into a hard line, read the words over and over to be sure the letters weren’t just re-arranging themselves. Unfortunately, they stayed in place, staring up at him and projecting images of the deceased pair into his mind, alongside roughly a thousand questions.

“Shit.” He braced his hands on the ground, leaning over the newspapers. “You’re serious?”

Ed, somehow, with his infinite cynicism and reserves of morbid humour, laughed. It with startlingly off-putting to hear what was normally a small moment of sincerity from the younger—a laugh being one of the things he couldn’t pull from a hat and plaster on like a two-bit magician—be played aloud in such a dire set of circumstances. If once it had been a welcome sound, now it felt tainted.

“Wish I wasn’t.” He replied flippantly.

Roy began to dwell, a little dangerously in all truth, on how damned they were. The best shot they had at the moment was to call for help. But how long would it take to get here? There was no way they could simply outrun their enemies, not with Ed still balancing on one foot and holding his singed arm to his chest protectively. He supposed they could lay low until the cavalry came, but they were at a major disadvantage.

This was their home. Roy and Ed were outsiders of the highest order and had only managed this far because Ed had his head screwed on right and remembered some key details. They’d’ve been wandering the tunnels for days otherwise.

Even with the younger alchemist having a vague sense of direction, luck had been on their side. And if they were, for whatever reason, split up…

Each were sitting ducks in their own right.

Roy had precisely no familiarity with the area. Ed could hardly walk, let alone fight.

He sighed, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “Why’d you keep this to yourself until now?”

Ed merely shrugged, his lips still tilted up in a distorted mockery of a smile. “We were kind of _busy_.”

“Too busy to tell me about _this?_ ” Roy barked, gesturing to the scattered leaflets.

“What does it matter? It’s not like you could have done anything about it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?” Ed challenged. A moment later his face went utterly blank and something awful dashed over his expression but it was too late because Roy was already scowling, frustrated and put out.

He was mad. At Ed, yes, and at everything else. It came out in a harsh snarl. “The _point_ is that you don’t hide information when it’s convenient for you, _Fullmetal_.”

His hand emphasized the words with a heavy slam against the wood and… and Ed _flinched_.

He flinched away from Roy and suddenly all the ire and exasperation was gone, blown away by the— _by the look_ that flickered across the kid’s face.

Ed flinched and it was painfully noticeable, nearly violent.

He fell quiet, his eyes averted and sinking down into the hovel a little. Roy felt a mild, but growing sense of dread flourish in his chest. It was accompanied by guilt. He drew back, feeling unsure and, to his own surprise, worried. As far back as he could recall, Ed didn’t—had he ever so blatantly recoiled like that?

Set aside moments of injury or anger. He just saw cold _fear_ flash through those golden eyes. Outright, unadulterated and un-policed. Roy wasn’t all that sure he’d ever seen that before, actually.

Because Ed was the boy who’d walked through hell.

He didn’t scare easily. He didn’t scare at all and even if he did, Ed knew exactly how to bury those feelings under a metric ton of abrasiveness and incomprehensible brilliance. He knew how to keep things masked and even in the worst of times, fear wasn’t something that would _dare_ mark his face.

Roy briefly remembered the wrenched, pleading scream he had heard earlier.

He knew that there was at least one person able to mimic voices. Roy had heard it firsthand and logically… _logically_ that could be used against someone. It was a perfect tool to do so and they’d likely gotten a taste of his voice through the phone. They would know how to pilfer his words and throw them around how they pleased, in theory.

 _In theory._ But no. _No_ , it was just that. It was a vague, baseless idea and Roy should know better than to jump to concussions like this. It was only a theory and one that he wouldn’t give the time of day.

But still they could’ve—no.

_No, no, no._

He didn’t want to give the idea any more space to grow. He didn’t want to _think_ , or really even _consider_ it.

“It slipped my mind.” Ed said softly, still defensive in the low tone. His words saved Roy from an awful train of thought. “Sue me.”

He breathed, cutting the folds and fissures that marred his expression. “Fine, whatever.” He tried to sound calm. “Now I know. What else _slipped your mind_?”

He didn’t say anything for a long, long moment. It was deathly silent while Roy waited for a response. Ed stared down, his jaw locked shut and left arm cradled against his chest in an almost desperate defensive way. Like he was ready for an argument or debate.

No, that was wrong. Ed looked ready for a _fight_. Like he was readying to jump back or block a hit.

Like he was somehow expecting Roy to _attack_ him. He kept his mouth shut and tried to seem as non-threatening as possible. He couldn’t fathom why Ed would seem _afraid_ —no, no, no, he _couldn’t_ because there was no explanation and it was something else it _must_ be because Ed would’ve _told him_ right—but he backed down anyways.

Ed hesitantly started again, blinking hard a few times, his voice catching at the back of his throat. He looked down and refused to risk so much as a one eyed glimpse up. “I think the Tellers and their, I don’t know, _accomplices_ , have been drowning people in the pits for some reason.”

“How do you figure?”

“Cause this couple,” he pointed to the photograph, still not looking at Roy, “the _Robinsons_ , tried to move away a few weeks back and I found their bodies in the fields.” His hand drifted, landing on the hands framed in the article, each encircled with wedding bands. “They didn’t even bother taking off the rings.”

Ed’s hand, he noted, seemed to be shaking. Ed must have noted it too, because he let the limb drop away, hidden away, mindful of all the scrapes and scotch marks. They still had Roy wincing internally, right along his own rushes of… rage? It was more then that. Rage but put through a meat grinder and filed into gunpowder because it felt rather explosive.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he could send that explosion clean through their eye sockets.

Roy breathed and shooed the thoughts away. He didn’t really admonish himself for the violent ideation, however. What would it matter when they _clearly_ deserved it?

They scared the boy who’d walked through hell.

Calm down. Figure that out later. Focus.

“What about the Tellers?” Roy asked.

Ed tilted his head, again inching back. “What?”

“That family.” Roy stressed. “Forty years back the _Tellers_ supposedly drowned in a bog. The bodies were never recovered and afterwards the wetlands purportedly receded.”

Ed stiffened, his eyes alight with a familiar, annoyingly _quick_ blaze about them that spell the beginnings of either a miracle or a cataclysm. This time, it would at least work in their mutual favour.  
“And if the reports are all faked—“ He started. To Roy’s relief, he seemed to relax a little, willing to let himself look back towards their table spread of rotting evidence.

“—Then they probably died in the tar pits.” Roy finished quietly, calling back to his conversation with Hughes about all the little inconsistencies that had seemed random and senseless, now weaving together into a rather ugly tapestry.

“But… but that doesn’t make sense!” Ed frowned, hoisting himself up a little to pour over the other articles he’d fished out of the floor. “If the Tellers died because of those sinkholes, then why would what’s left of their family be orchestrating this _now_?”

“I don’t know.” The older alchemist replied.

Ed fidgeted, his chin propped up on his automail and falling head over heels into _concentration mode_. At least he was acting more normal (as normal as an Elric could get, anyways), but Roy hoped he’d remember to turn the ability off before he forget why they were here altogether; he knew for fact the kid could get hyper-focused, tumbling into his research to the point of just… not remembering how to be a _person_.

He’d heard the exasperated badgering from the younger Elric about how Ed would simply curl up with a book and stay that way until someone pushed him from his chair and dragged him to the nearest bed. Roy had witnessed the phenomenon a few times around Eastern Command and presently held the record for most crumpled paper balls balanced atop the boy’s head without him noticing as he read. Some wanted to start a betting pool.

 _(Some_ was Roy and Havoc.)

Ed frowned in an almost childish manner. Too bad his face was already marred with worry, blood, and blisters. “You’d think they’d try to keep other people from falling in, right? Instead all the mentions of it are blotted out. The only reason I went to check in the first place was because this paper about the Robinsons must’ve slipped between the cracks.” He muttered to himself, with Roy having to strain in order to make out the words.

He sat back and let Ed peacefully think himself into a hole, trusting that he’d be able to dig himself out with some theories in due time. Roy sank into his own pool of thought and felt his eyes grow a little wild, more unhinged in their wandering of the papers laid out in a ragged, insidious mosaic.

One that was out of order and they had to put back together without knowing the big picture. In short, he and Ed had been handed a near impossible task that was balanced on circumstantial evidence and desperate scraps of information. Their miserable little mystery was charitably wrapped in the skin of the dead and bathed in lies, which was just _wonderful_ , wasn’t it?

Not to mention something had freaked out Ed so bad he was jumping away from _Roy_ , of all people. And there was no explanation for that. None.

Nope. He refused to let the idea bloom to anything more than a nagging feeling in a faraway corner of his mind.

Roy skimmed through his internal library of information, reviewing the facts he’d been given over and over, waiting for one of them to suddenly be bolded in red and to scream out and say _hey moron the answer is right in front of_ —

—you.

Roy blinked. “They’ve had a good harvest streak going, forty years as of now.”

Ed looked up. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“The Tellers drowned forty years back. I checked their criminal files and there’s been nothing for forty years.”

“Okay…?” His shoulder lifted, eyebrows quirking in an uneven, impish way. Roy’s fingers began to tap together in a lulling, rapid motion with each digit connecting with his thumb over the course of a second before repeating.

“Don’t you find that kind of odd?” He asked, meeting Ed’s eyes. “That as soon as this one family kicked the bucket, suddenly the land is better for planting and crime stops? People don’t move away from Blackwell anymore, and something tells me it because they never get the chance.”

The blond looked taken aback, his own mind racing to compensate, overcorrecting and overworked to the brink of shutdown. He shook his head a little, shooting Roy a pretty wary look, like he was starting to question the older man’s sanity.

Which, to be fair, might very well be slipping.

“Yeah, sure, that’s weird and all but correlation—“

“—Isn’t causation, I know that!” Roy winced internally, realizing that he was recycling Hughes’ words down to the letter. “But don’t you think all this is lining up a little too neatly?”

“But there’s no reason for any of it.” Ed replied, waving to the fistful of articles he’d retrieved. “What could anyone have to gain by cutting up bodies and burying them like that? Especially someone who already has so much power in this dumb town? There’s nothing to get out of it.”

“Could be some twisted way of getting revenge on the land.”

“Like, _if I can’t be happy, no one can_ sort of deal?” Ed asked flatly and _god_ Roy could see it on his face. The kid thought he was a square-step away from dipping a toe into the paranormal and _no_ , he _wasn’t_ going to do that. He’s still an alchemist; he’s still a scientist, but this logical trail is getting pretty muddied and he was exhausted by the mental acrobatics it took to make that first leap.

There _had_ to be some kind of connective tissue between the misreported incidents, the forty years of good fortune and the Tellers being thoroughly off their shits. It was too perfectly fitted; too tailored and unexplainable.

Roy shrugged helplessly, trying to regain any authority he might’ve had over the situation. Which had previously, in exact terms, been none, because _this was Ed_ and why would he ever expect to have control over a literal hell spawn with fire in his mouth and lawlessness in his heart?

 _Trying_ really was the keyword here.

“It’s a guess.”

Ed seemed to accept Roy’s newfound spitball approach—toss any idea at the wall, see what sticks, the works and all—in stride, fidgeting with the dog-eared cornersof the newspapers and sighing lightly. “I’d just like to know why _everything_ about this leads back to this one family cause I’m getting real fuckin’ sick of it. There was even…” He trailed off.

“Even what?” Roy prompted.

The cagey, reluctant tone came back with a vengeance. “Uh, you remember how I mentioned they knocked me out…?”

He frowned, voice set to deadpan and gaze disapproving. “Yes, I do recall.”

“Well I’m, like, a hundred percent sure they chucked me in a cellar.” Roy’s eyes widened in alarm. The informed absolutely fucking _floored_ him because _there_ was his confirmation about the impressions over the kid’s arm. He _had_ been tied down. And what, _pray fucking tell_ , did that mean for the _burns_ —

“Oh relax.” Ed waved him off. Roy did nothing of the sort, but smoothed the lines on his face nonetheless.

Ed continued. “I got out before you were even in here. But there was—okay, it’s really freaky and I don’t know why it was there, but they had a bunch of shelves. Like the kind that you’d have for wine rack or something.”

“You’re stalling.” He stated.

The blond snarled in kind. “ _Back off,_ it was creepy as hell. The thing was filled with these big mason jars and—“ The distinct, breeze-like tone used to keep ones cool fizzled to nothing, Ed’s face becoming soberingly tense. “—Colonel, they’re, like, _pickling_ pieces of flesh from everyone they’re killing. Said it was to memorialize them or something.”

There was something buried in the lines of Ed’s face, planted like seeds that had yet to poke from their groves and were so masked by the million other things Ed was trying to convince Roy—himself, maybe—of that the meaning was lost. But there was something important there.

“That’s… disturbing.” Roy said slowly, after deliberating on whether or not he should call Ed on the very peculiar look. He knew to choose his battles and this was one neither of them had the time or energy to fight.

“Yeah and guess whose fuckin’ name was on the oldest jar.” The younger spat.

Roy closed his eyes.

“Don’t tell me—“

“ _Yeah_.” So they were dealing with a carnival ride of a situation, all of it looping in on itself and back to the _Tellers_. He was getting pretty damn tired of it. Roy pinched the bridge of his nose while Ed continued. “They all had the year on it too… I’m pretty sure it lines up with the forty years bit.”

“How has this gone unnoticed for so long?” He hissed under his breath.

It made enough sense if the people impersonating MPs were in on it, feeding rotten data to the military and manipulating older records, but there _had_ been other inspections in the past decade. They couldn’t have missed something this egregiously big.   
As though he was reading Roy’s thoughts, Ed pipped up. “I mean, didn’t you say the last guy who came here for the inspection moved?”

“Yeah. Him and his family. So they’re probably dead.”

“Probably, yeah.”

“And they’d been putting it off for a long while too.”

Ed paused for a beat, head rested on his automail hand. “The MPs are in on it.”

“Those aren’t the MPs that got assigned here, actually.”

Ed sighed, pushing a hand through his sweat dampened hair. “Of _course_ they’re not. I can’t decided if that makes it worse or not.”

“They probably killed the ones that were sent here.” Roy mused weakly.

“I think I found their coats in that case. This is a mess.” The blond buried his face in his hands with a frustrated, muttered line of impressively garish swears. Cheers to that.

Ed was right: this was a mess and it seemed quite insistent on getting worse with each passing minute. The boy huffed, straightening up. Determination came creeping in. “Okay so… ideas?”

“Beats me.”

“Very helpful, thanks. But what do we have so far? Like, maybe we’re just missing something about all this.”

Roy’s brow furrowed, calling back to his call with Hughes. “There hasn’t been any crime since that family died.”

“What else?” Ed pressed.

“The story with the bog was probably a fake that no one bothered to verify.”

The kid scoffed mirthlessly, his hand halfway raised into a treasonous salut. “God bless the military.”

Roy glared flatly because really, now was not the time for sarcasm. He needed to _think_ about this. “You’re insulting both of us, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved as though the words couldn’t get him in actual legal trouble had Roy been any other officer. Ed’s eyes narrowed and the flippant tone vanish fast enough to give Roy whiplash. “So what motive might there be?”

 _Think_. Back to what Hughes said. Back to what Alistair had said.

There has to be something in there, some firmly placed little clue in this absolute sandstorm of a conspiracy, or a vague pointer on where to direct his mental energy but… nothing. His mind pulled a blank. He’s forehead creased in thought, desperately combing over what little information they’d scrounged together in search of any little indicator but it was useless. This was insultingly beyond him.

Roy sighed in defeat. “I… I don’t know.”  
Ed frowned, arms crossing carefully over his chest and looking a bit older then he actually was. His eyes did the little dark _flash_ that they sometimes did, telling anyone who saw that this kid had the wisdom and knowledge of a mountain whose peak had started as a sand bar in the middle of an ocean. It was like he’d see things greater than the world grow and fall apart, somehow. His voice became prodding and urgent. Pleading? That was strange…

“Colonel, c’mon—“

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Roy cut him off as gently as he could, forgoing the formalities of their antagonism in favour of being a little bit honest. Judging by the unguarded surprise, Ed hadn’t really been expecting that which, to be fair, Roy hadn’t either. The soft admission slipped out before he could pull it back. He sighed, one hand reaching to uselessly examine the display of articles. “I don’t know why this is happening. It’s bigger than either of us and I just…” He breathed. “I just don’t know.”

The blond frowned for a moment longer, before the expression cracked right down the middle, the glower melting into a downcast, forlorn gaze. His mouth pressed into a thin line, hands picking at the spliced wood and tracing across the upturned nails.

“Yeah.” He said after a moment. “Me neither.”

“Some alchemists we are.”

Neither of them laughed, but Ed almost smiled at the poor attempt at a joke. They were just… _so_ far out of their depth. It was almost indescribable, the feeling of being so thoroughly lost in a maze that they couldn’t even take a moment to pull back and realize the walls were all mirrors. Lost like a flower finding its way into a wasteland because they really, _really_ shouldn’t be here.

But there was no way out either.

Roy still tried to think up some possibility, some lead or explanation so the gravity of this whole thing would stop flooring him every three seconds. He wanted to find an empty house and sleep as long as he possibly could, anything to escape this for just a while longer. Even… even if it meant having to hear that scream again. At least he could wake up from that nightmare. This was reality. No amount of arm-pinching or eye-shutting was going to change that.

His mind seemed to shut down, freezing over to prevent him from doing anything productive and leaving him to stare into space, hoping that a thought would hit him before a bullet did.

A bullet.

They should probably get moving, actually. Try their hand at using the phones Ed mentioned and hope some proper backup could get to them soon enough. Wouldn’t that be pathetic? If they managed to call for help only to be shot before it arrived?

Just as Roy was going to push himself upright and head towards the doors, ready to rummage through the front desk until their phone presented itself, Ed ducked down into the hole. “Idea. I have an idea.”

Roy paused, kneeling back down by the torn up section of flooring. “What is it?”

“These are all the papers.” Ed said. For this first time since, well, since _all this started_ , he sounded hopeful. “All the reports they must’ve gather up to hide the evidence. If the Tellers were the first ones to go out—“

“—then you think there’d be some news of it.” Roy finished with a tiny, impressed smirk tugging at his mouth. Of course Ed would find something to latch on to. How dare he imply otherwise. It was almost nice to see the kid come back to himself a little—intensely smart, sharp as a razor, energized and curious enough that if it ever did kill him, he’d come back out of sheer willpower. He’d been so snappish and desponded up until now.

And the flinching.

Roy shook himself, his attention turned back to the sound of nails peeling up old papers and tossing them aside. Some sounded like they should, thin and fluttery, maybe a bit crinkled, while others sounded downright soggy. At least Ed has a metal arm, he supposed.

“Exactly.” The younger alchemist agreed. He’d been entirely swallow up by the darkness, squinting didn’t even reveal a silhouette. Instead, Roy tried to pinpoint where Ed was through the sounds. They were fast, coming in cluttered flurries, rapid fire to make up for lost time.

“Move over.” Ed called. “You’re blocking the light.”

Roy frowned, but shuffled back, his head inclined towards the hole in a sad attempt to hear anything past the cacophony of newspapers be dug through and torn apart. Some of them sounded like they were falling apart, disintegrating mid-air and taking their secrets with them into a papery grave. Roy remembered that patience was supposed to be a good trait and tried to employ it, despite the creeping feeling that they should leave.

It felt like there were eyes everywhere, protruding from the walls and peeking under the door. He knew that it could easily be chalked up to anxiety, but that didn’t stop his own gaze from darting around to every shadow. It was a deeply unpleasant sensation, the hair at the back of his neck standing up, pin straight, and a crooning, gently kind of panic washing through the room.

The noise that wafted up from where Ed was practicing being a mole came to an abrupt halt after a few minutes. “Oh—oh wait a goddamn second.” He hissed.

Roy let out a breath that had started to build behind his teeth subconsciously. “What?” He leaned forward.

“I think I found an answer.”

He blinked. “Come again?”

The kid’s head popped up, spat out from the gapping chasm and wielding a half decayed paper in one hand. He leaned forward elbows resting on the wooden ledge, waving the paper haphazardly. “Take a look. I can’t make out what it says but according to my shitty math, this is the right year. Four decade streak, right?“

“Wh—yeah. goddamn. Pass it over.”

Ed handed off the paper and watched curiously as Roy brushed away the dust and grime. He’d need to wash his hands later because god this was gross. He poured over the article, skimming over the words that were steamed with age, ink bleeding into the rest of the paper. He squinted until a few sentences caught his eye with alarming ferocity. Roy read them and blanch.

Then he read them again to make sure his eyes were play tricks on him. And again. And again. A fifth and sixth time too. He almost dropped the damn thing because all of his thoughts had just been thrown so hard to one side he though it might actually make him fall over. What a revelation to find plastered onto yellow paper. It had no business being this important or powerful or—

“Anything?” Ed’s voice cut through the train (wreck?) of thought.

“Foul play.” He said plainly. Breathlessly.

What the hell.

Ed’s eyes widened. “…Run that by me one more time.” He said slowly.

Roy lifted the page, reading some of the only words that remained legible after—after forty fucking years. “ _The tragic incident with the Tellers wherein a mother, a father, and one of their two children were thrown into the tar pits is suspected to be foul play_.” He looked back to Ed. “There was no accident.”

“Holy shit.”

They sat in stifling silent for a moment, the information sinking in like a needle into skin, ready to deposit poison into their bloodstreams. The worst part was…

“Wait, that actually makes sense.” Roy said, dropping the slip and rocking back on his heels.

“What does?” Ed asked.

“Before their good harvest streak this place was dirt poor. If there was foul play suspected in this, I’m willing to bet it was bandits.”

The kid stared down, processing what Roy had said. He couldn’t even really blame him. It was a lot at once. Ed’s eloquence spouted itself in the form of two words: “The _hell_.”

Roy almost let an an incredulous, panicked laugh. Because yeah, the _hell_ was right. “There was probably a lot of paranoia.”

“I bet that’s why they put that wall up.” Ed muttered to himself.

“You mean the big stone one that’s around the county?”

“Yeah.” He made a rolling gesture with his metal hand, like he was trying to recall some facts that were scurrying away. “They said it was built special. Something about driving out the animals that were in the woods.”

A loaded statement if he ever heard one. “Bandits tend to move in packs.”

Ed huffed. “And they didn’t have any police or law enforcement here until recently, right?”

“Right.” Roy replied with a nod.

They lapses in a heavy silence. He could hear the restless shifting of the newspapers, crumpling under Ed’s weight as he tried to keep his broken ankle from having too much pressure on it. The younger alchemist’s shoulders hunched, the rest of him circling inwards just a little like he was trying to vanish without actually moving.

“You don’t think that they’re… executing criminals do you?” He asked hesitantly.

“I _think_ they’re executing anyone who becomes a threat to their livelihood.”

“Guess so. It would explain why no one ever moved away too.”

“Well now that includes both of us. We’re certainly a threat.

“Hooray. Just… awesome.” He looked exhausted. In retrospect, Roy probably should have added a second condition to his trade off with Ed from hours earlier demanding that he get a little bit of sleep as well that wasn’t due to being attacked. Once again, for a brief moment, Roy’s blood started boil.

Ed was a _kid_. There was nothing else to even say. He's a kid. Even if he was a brilliant alchemist, even if he had seen enough hell to put him on the list of things god himself should fear, even if he’d been in the military for years now, he was a _kid_. And they’d been merciless.

When Ed had passed out, Roy had gotten a good look at his arm. They'd kept him from moving and it left skinned stripes.

Ed basically told him that outright, admitting that there was some cellar stacked with canned flesh and tissue. They’d broken his ankle to keep him from running and cut off the circulation in his arm.

Ed had been burned at some point. It looked slow and deliberate. It made him seethe quietly, jaw locked shut and eyes going narrow.

Roy couldn’t hope to push back to rush of anger that threatened to drag him under. They deserved to suffer.

He’d happily be the one to deal it out too. The thought didn’t come as a shock, nor did the bloody, violent notion. It had been coming around more and more frequently. Roy was tempted to reach out his hand and accept the offer. Some part of him was itching for retribution in an unkind, unsettling fashion.

If the situation was different, Roy might take a pause to consider the ideas cruel. But they really deserved whatever he could dole out. It would be easy.

“Spacing out on me?” Ed waved a hand in front of his face.

“No, I’m fine.” It was so plainly untrue that Roy almost choked out a quick laugh. _Fine_ , like he was daydreaming about burning Alistair to death. Screams would sing ease to his rage.

Ed reached across the floor, carefully brushing some of the papers he’d fished out back into their grave. “The town is probably oblivious.” He said. the papers cascaded downwards. “Most don’t even live _in_ the town.”

Roy nodded in agreement, kicking down the last few articles. Ed dodged the paper projectiles, but didn’t complain. Weird. The older alchemist glanced down, once again combing over the plethora of evidence beneath his feet. “Half of them wouldn’t be old enough to remember if this place ever was overrun with crimes, and the ones that do are just counting their blessings.”

“That’s probably why they were all so obsessed with luck and fortune.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“The whole time I was there.” Ed explained, leaning up against the floor, avoiding the nails carefully. He flicked at the splitters absently like the hyperactive child he was. “Everyone I talked to was going on about blessings and good luck. There’s a solid chance they have a bit of anxiety around the crops if they were being ransacked or robbed for years beforehand.” He shrugged, fading off the thought weakly.

He looked really really tired. Roy cast a glance around the room, debating internally if it would be worth patching up the floor to cover the fact that they’d been inside at all, trying to distract himself from the kid’s clearly waning strength. He’d noticed it little by little up until now, catching the way Ed paused to breathe or scrub at his eyes. He’d smartly stayed quiet on the matter because it had been small enough to ignore, but now Ed looked like he was crashing.

 _Keep him talking. Get out of here first_.

“Then what’s the deal with the aqueducts?” Roy questioned aloud. Ed jerked upright with a brief, wild look. It vanished before he could figure out if it was just due to being startled, or if it was something else. “And the tar pits? There’s no reason that they wouldn’t have included those in their files.”

Ed blinked owlishly. Then his brow furrowed, mouth twisting into a lopsided scowl. “I actually have an idea about that…”

_Keep him talking._

“Well?” He prompted, gesturing for Ed to continue.

He looked a little bit uncomfortable, eyes flicking around the room quickly before gluing themselves to the floor. If Roy had to guess, Ed was feeling the haunting sensation of being watch too. It was a contagious, viral little thing that was giving him goosebumps and making Ed shiver. “Don’t laugh.” The blond said warily. “It sounds a bit dumb but seriously don’t laugh.”

“Eh…” He shrugged noncommittally, face pinched and head tilted a little to the side.

“ _Colonel!”_ Ed hissed. It was far more in character than most of what he’d been doing up until now, so even the admonishing, pissed off tone was somewhat welcome.

“Okay, okay.” He said, hands held up in surrender and repressing a small, smug smirk. Less because of the way he was able to get on the kid’s nerves and more for the fact that he’d successfully goaded him into looking more alert and less dead on his feet… foot plus half. “I won’t.” He assured lightly.

Ed gave him a dubious look, clearly unconvinced, but it dissipated after a moment. He sighed. “Tar fucks up land. Like, _really bad_. There’s a lot of bacteria and stuff that would screw up most crops. They might’ve just said it was a bog because that’s less suspicious, and if anyone actually came in to _look_ at the fields and didn’t look too hard, it would seem fine because they both come from peat.” Ed’s face grew shadowed. “It’s a lot easier to claim a family died in some swamp than unreported tar pits, and they probably would’ve gotten hell from the military for it too.”

“Alright, so that was a cover for the foul play.” Roy replied. He waited for Ed to continue, but he stayed put, mouth firmly set shut. He scanned the younger alchemist. “What’s the dumb part?”

Again, Ed hesitated for a long while. Roy stared at him in a silent urging. For once, instead of demanding in his glares, he tried ona little bit of tact. It would work too, right?

Unless Hughes had been lying to his face for years now.

Finally Ed caved. “They might’ve been using the tunnels to flush out the bacteria. Decommissioned so people wouldn’t poke around, but done underground in case any officials happened to drop by and start asking questions and then _bam_ : golden harvest, no bandits, no suspicions.”

Well goddamn.

Dumb was certainly not one of the things that Ed was. Not now and not ever.

Roy opened his mouth to respond—

—and then the door opened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, yes. The classic tasteless cliffhanger. In my defence....? Eh, no I'm just a dick. However! Welcome back to I Fucking Love Writing Mystery: starring, written and produced by me.  
> And what's this! More super amazing art, you say? Fuck it up! [beep bop](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/634810297552699392/part-4-of-my-obsession-with-liathgray-s-fic)  
> I'll see y'all next with with more of my bullshit ily.
> 
> 14-21-18-19-5-18-25 18-8-25-13-5


	12. Escape Artist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Disassociation. Intrusive thoughts. Threats of violence. Discussion of death. Graphic depiction of a corpse. Insects. Decay/ gore.

The archive was still locked shut, but the distinct, whistling creak of the library's front doors swinging in a wide arc made them both freeze.

The lights flicked on, spilling a yellow blush under the door, and they heard voices.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. The lights were acting strange and I saw shadows. But it’s nothing to worry about… right?”

“We’ll see.”

Ed stared at the door, wide eyed. _That’s one of the MPs._

 _Shit_.

“Blackwell Springs hasn’t had crime in years. I just don’t want the little ones to feel unsafe.”

“Yes, I understand, but you needn’t worry about this.”

Shoes scuffed against the wood, padding against the carpet by the front desk. Ed recognized the voice of the guy whose nose he’d caved in. It was muffled, probably due to the tape that held his face together. 

He was _here_ and they were so, so screwed.

Ed didn’t take a moment to think, he just grabbed Mustang by the sleeve and yanked him down into the newspaper dump, scrambling to slide the floorboards back into place, missing inconspicuous by a mile but too frantic to care. He ducked under the last panel as Mustang regained his bearing, glancing around the crawlspace critically.

It took a second for his eye to readjust, but the low lighting hardly changed a thing. It was still a shallow area, just under three feet in height but spread in a wide, jagged circle, spiralling out under the rest of the room. Which explained why all the floors had been so horrendously loud the first time he’d been inside.

And why everything smelled rotten.

He hovered by the makeshift entrance, listening to the voices intently.

“You can head off now, Miss.” The MP said. Ed pressed his ear to the floor, straining through the layers that distorted their conversation. The officer continued, his voice neutral. “I’ll look around.”

“Thank you.”

There was a soft sound—leather on metal and the tinny _click_ of safety being flicked off.

Ed’s breath caught in his throat.

He was _here_ and he had a _gun_ and _fucking hell they’re screwed._

Were they _looking_ for him and Mustang? Or had it just been some frightened call to the police by a civilian?

They were both outsiders—military agents. It wouldn’t be hard to manufacture some story about the wicked government turning on a small town or revealing themselves as corrupt. The townspeople, off kilter and kind though they were, surely had more faith in the people they knew. They’re not stupid, but they’re trusting. Ed doubted they’d go looking for anything past what information they were fed.

If that was the case and everyone was on watch for them… making a break for it was looking more and more plausible by the second. What else did they have left to lose?

A hand latched onto his collar and wrenched him back. Ed would’ve yelped in surprise ( _fear_ ) had his jaw not been locked in place with metal screws and paranoid wire. He fell back easily, landing with a steady arm looped over his shoulders and Mustang’s voice in his ear. “Snap out of it!” He hissed.

Ed swallowed back a mouthful of protests, blinking the shock that was clouding his eyes. Mustang slowly released the blond from his grasp, looking uncertain but holding back any comments. Ed’s voice fell into a barely audible whisper. “He might not check here.”

The older man stiffened, scowling at him. “He has a _gun_.”

A gun. _A gun._

Ed breathed, scanning their… accommodations, mindful of the places where the flipped ceiling seemed to thin out and the spots in the walls that looked musty, parts of it were even overgrown with patches of glistening mold.

“Hey...” He murmured. Mustang looked up, one part curious and ten parts cautious. Ed’s hand curled, straying towards his pocket. “You remember a few days back, when you bugged me about checking in…?”

His eyebrows pinched together, eyes narrowed analytically as thought the blond was speaking in another language. “I—yeah. Yes. Why?”

“And you told me not to burn the place down?” Ed raised his hand, careful not to rattle the box too much as to not give any more indication to where they were. He smiled wanly. “I think the qualifies as an emergency.”

“There’s…” Mustang started slowly, reaching for the paper-plaster ground that was still sliding around beneath them. “A lot of papers.”

“They’re flammable.” Ed agreed with a nod.

The older man looked like he wanted to object. It was written through his eyes and somehow woven into the slight twitch of his hand. But instead he cast a glance around the piles of slips and fliers, the torn sheets that laid in thick droves all around them.

He shuffled over to the far wall wordlessly and experimentally leaned his foot against it. Ed watch the sodden wood bend easily, sounding spongey under the pressure. Mustang didn’t look back at Ed, but something dark and bad was billowing off of him.

His hand drifted down to the papers, grasping a dense section that had grown stuck together from time and water damage. He pried them upwards like the worlds dirtiest blanket, falling apart and scattered with angular holes.

They dropped down with a damp thump. His thought process had been clear enough: trying to break out through the caving walls, looking for something to hide them. The fact that they were surrounded by mold and mildew tossed both options off the table. Fight or flight was kicking in and Ed was so low on energy that both seemed impossible.

There was a special glint in his eye that spelled _worry_ and Ed despised it with every inch of his being. “We need to stay put.” Mustang whispered.

Again. It was happening _again_.

Being trapped in the dark with the scent of decay in the air and—and _Colonel goddamn Mustang’s_ voice in his ear and the MP has a _gun_ for fuck’s sake.

Ed opened his mouth to protest, to stage-whisper that being passive was what got them into this in the first place and going up against someone whose armed is probably not the best idea with Ed halfway out of commission and the Colonel himself still dead on his feet and—

—then there was footsteps. Creaking right near the door, loud and deliberate.

Mustang’s patience must’ve flown off with Ed’s ability to think straight, because he darted forward, once again snatching up the collar of Ed’s shirt and hauling him backwards, a hand latching onto his shoulder and holding them both against the far wall.

The sudden motion didn’t make Ed’s eyes flash. It didn’t have his heart spiking, shooting up into his throat.

Ed didn’t flinch.

They watched, waiting for the noises to retreat into another direction but they didn’t. In slow beats, the officers feet drew closer to the archive door.

For a long second, it was silent. Both Ed and Mustang breathed a soft sigh of relief before the door slammed open violently. The whole room shuddered with the force of it. The younger alchemist's heart thundered in his chest.

The shelf was still out of place. He was bound to notice and _god_ they should’ve just set this whole building on fire and bolted, evidence be damned.

But they couldn’t. Ed stilled entirely, still breathing in the taste of decomposing wood pulp but trying desperately to not be heard. It wasn’t even the smell that made Ed choke, it was the burning _ripple_ that shot up his leg from the way the pages kept slipping and twisting under even the slightest weight. Before he had kept it held aloft, relying on his automail to stay upright while they poured over the articles. Now it was like kicking through wet concrete.

His hand flew up to clamp over his mouth, eyes screwed shut while his leg cried in white hot bursts. Mustang elbowed him lightly, his head inclined to a split between the floorboards big enough to look through. “Focus on it.” He told the younger sternly, holding onto a commanding tone even in a whisper.

It still make him shrink back, but Ed grit his teeth, nodding in a quick, jerking motion.

A shadow passed over them, slow and malicious in every motion. Each step drove a loud groan from the floor. Ed kept his hand over his mouth, eye wide and his heart racing.

He could hear the pounding all through his head in a dull pulse, thrumming through his ears in a tightly choreographed rhythm. It rattled through him without restraint. He didn’t dare move.

Or breathe.

As if he even _could_. His throat had grown dry, wound up like there was a noose suffocating him and his lungs just flat out stopped working.

Ed blinked through the water in his eyes, stinging from the rolling stench of rot that he couldn’t seem to shake, his free hand clawing at the ground for any kind of anchor.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Mustang’s shrouded form go ridged, sucking in a sharp breath. He glanced to Ed, only barely illuminated through the filtering of rays from above, his eyes narrowing in some modicum of reassurance and to Ed’s shock, it _worked_.

A pressure he had forgotten was there ebbed away, retreating from his left shoulder carefully. It didn’t go completely, though. A hand. Mustang’s hand, specifically, suck in place from when he first pulled the kid back. It was confident in a way Ed wasn’t really from the older alchemist, yet he still wished he would _let go_. 

Even though it made him feel less horrified and alone, he needed to _let go_.

Perhaps it was an attempt to ground him, perhaps it was just a reflex. Either way, Ed shot the Colonel a terribly unguarded look and then stared up at the crosshatching floorboards, each crack being filled with light like the mortar between bricks, shining down in a sickly sharp glow.

The shoes sliding over the surface were both quiet and loud, making him wince whenever they hit a little too hard. The MP paused where the shelf was pushed to the side. When he spoke, Ed could almost hear the sickly smile. “I know you’re here.”

Ed exhaled slowly, concentrating on the movement of each breath like it was the only thing that mattered because he couldn’t afford to think about the voice that lilted and trembling around a broken nose, or the padding of rubber soles across the panels.

“Come on out. I don’t bite. I just want to have a nice talk.” He was saying things that Ed didn’t care to hear, probably taunting and mocking or trying to coax them out into the open. As if it would ever work.

He absently traced the brittle pages under his hand, distracting himself from the silhouette that was now directly above, gracelessly pattering around in a frustrated circle with a firearm loosely stuck between his fingers.

Just… _breathe_.

_You're not alone. The Colonel is here too. Trust him._

_(Don’t. You can’t.)_

_You have to._

_That’s how it works._

Despite his horribly waning faith in Mustang, he had no real choice but to go along with this. Ed would rather be terrified and flinching at every second word—which he _wasn’t_ anyways—than be alone again. That had been hell.

He’d really... he’d really thought he might be going crazy.

No, being a little freaked out was better than losing his mind altogether.

(No it wasn't. It's worse.)

“Wait.” The older alchemist whispered, shifting just slightly, watching the shadow alongside Ed. “Just wait.” It was almost inaudible. Ed had to actually strain to hear him. As much as he loathed every moment of it, he waited. He waited and Mustang waited.

Frustration bubbled through him, urging that he break what was clearly an order. They should set the place on fire. They should run for the hills before the MP started using his weapon a little too liberally. They should run. He stayed put though, peering though the hole to watch the MP stalk forward. His teeth clicked with a toothy grin. The man almost sounded animalistic. “C’mon. I don’t want any trouble. Let’s just chat.” The bullets rattled in their chambers.

Ed beat back the urge to just sink into the floor. He wished he could. Instead his shoulder grew painfully tense and held himself low to the ground, his free hand skimming the papers as they crinkled under his fingers.

The outline was moving, creeping around the other shelves in the room in a predatory way with carefully angled footing. It took a long pause. Mustang’s hand tightened on his shoulder and a quite glance told him that the older alchemist was readying himself for a fight. The MP kicked at the shelves, dragging his weight over where the panels were warped and splintered, holding a hand against it and lifting, easing it up inch by inch.

Ed thought he might break a tooth with how hard he snapped his mouth shut.

By some miracle, it caught on a loose nail and the man dropped the board. The barrel of his gun dragged over the wood for a moment as he stood. The blond bit his lip to keep from saying anything as panic raced through his veins with fervent animosity. There might as well be sulphur in his body. Everything was volatile—a moment from blowing up.

Anxiety wormed right through Ed’s heart, pulled taut and chewing through the tissue. He fully turned and for just a split second caught Mustang’s eye. And honestly, Ed wished he hadn’t.

Because he looked apologetic. Shaky confidence blended together effortlessly with the nerves and he was every bit as scared as Ed was right now. 

Mustang looked away.

The voice from above came again but this time it was a shout. “Quite screwing with me!” He bellowed. “I’ll kill the both of you if you don’t.”

Ed had a bird’s-eye view of it all. More like a reverse bird’s-eye, actually. Worm’s eye?

It was irrelevant.

He could see the shadows, the MP storming forward at the speed of sound and knocking into the shelve hard enough to send it tumbling. He kicked them down freely, uncaring of the mess he was making and the mounds of records that spilled forward. Ed felt a cold numbness soak through him, pulling him into a melodic, damn near musical reverie. It was uncertainty and fear; it was a desperate, alarmed instinct to get up and do something instead of just sitting there uselessly. It was dark and damp and it reeked of mildew.

The sticky scent of formaldehyde still clung to his throat and Ed was alone again. He was alone and it felt the same. His hands were free and it felt the same.

“Wait.” Mustang said again. He just _had_ to say something, didn’t he?

He said it in his own voice and Ed’s breath refused to come. His soul tried to tear itself from his body. Everything rippled and swam before him. The Colonel’s voice was unbearably reassuring and Ed felt sick. He jerked away without even thinking about it and nearly shouted at the older man to shut up.

And then—

—the fucking—

—gun went off.

With a roaring _bang_ , it split through the air. Ed flinched. He flinched so hard his shoulders knocked back against the wall and he nearly slammed his head into Mustang’s jaw.

He _flinched_.

And then he panicked.

That’s what happened. Ed panicked.

“ _Fullmetal_.” He was trying to help. He was trying to sound sure and calm.

It backfired brilliantly.

All it did was bring Ed back to the cellar for just enough time for his mind to fray, going haywire at the memory and his eyes seared with the image of a blindingly bright flash aimed directly at him. The resounding echo made it all so much worse because it got really quiet, save for the clambering buzz of the _second_ gunshot. It sent him into a rabid spiral that landed in a very, very dark place.

A grave, to be specific.

A grave that was his, to be specific.

For a split second there was a body and Ed reeled.

_Do you really think that a solider—_

He still had the matches. There was only three left and he didn’t know how long they’d need to make these last for but wasn’t this an emergency? Mustang said to wait. But Ed couldn’t really trust him, now could he? It was too damn dark.

The MP had a gun in his hand and was sending bullets into the ceiling. A third shot screamed into the night and Ed’s hand closed around the box, still laying in his pocket.

He should wait. Let the idiot tire himself out first and get rid of his ammunition. That was the logical thing but… but this was taking too long and Ed wasn’t known for his patience in the best of times. This qualified as the _worst_ and impulsiveness was revving itself up madly. The match was in his hand before he could think twice, struck with an almost non-existent hiss and flaring up right in front of his nose. It felt like thing were happening as though through a lake of quicksilver.

A handful of paper was clutched in his right hand.

The air was light and watery, the room cold and the burning stick leaped fearlessly onto that fanned out spread of papers he held in one hand, turning from yellow to orange in a matter of seconds before bleeding in shades of scarlet. Mustang reached to stop him, ready to yank him back like before, but Ed scrambled forward. It hurt. It hurt a lot, a shot of _ow ow ow_ scratching at his leg and crawling up his arm, but his eyes were glued to where there hung a pair of shrouded feet over the floor.

Now, to say that this was a good plan would be a blatant lie. Ed knew it was reckless and brash and all the other things adults liked to call him. They weren’t necessarily wrong in those descriptions, but Ed saw things… a little to the left.

Tilted in a way most couldn’t quite fix upon and it gave him a small flourish to every action. It wasn’t a good plan, no. But it was _a plan_. It was better than tackling an armed officer with a propensity towards being a trigger happy pissant who would blow a pound of lead through Ed’s skull at the first chance he got.

It was better than nothing so he took the stack of blazing papers in his hand and rushed to the other side of the room where the officers was spitting swears and shoving over more cabinets and making the room shake with the force of his raging tantrum. It was a good thing the floorboards were so widely spaced and, really, poorly maintained because it gave Ed the perfect opening to jam his fistful of flames through the cracks. Right under the MPs feet and climbing up his clothes.

Ed heard a startled scream and once again there was a hand gripping his shoulder and towing him away from the crime scene. Mustang somehow had enough adrenaline power him and Ed both, kicking the entrance open and pulling the blond up along with him, side-stepping the blaze as he delivered a hard, closed-hand punch to the man’s temple. He dropped harder than the shelves he’d been toppling.

The fire was rapidly dying out, the wood a little charred around the edges but still too damp to do more than sear a few claw marks in before inevitably sputtering out. Mustang did a half assed job of kicking the embers from the MPs clothes before unceremoniously dumping him into the newspaper graveyard. Ed dodged by an inch, his hands still shaking and head spinning at the inexpressibly panicked moment of instinct. The older alchemist stared down at him for a second.

“You’re insane.” He said plainly.

The fear started to retreat, ebbing into something more pliant and manageable. Ed grinned wryly. “Nice of you to notice.”

Mustang’s face was unreadable and Ed didn’t really care to figure it out. He just wanted his heart to stop squirming and for his pulse to slow from its current gallop. The older man cast a look around the archive, landing on one of the lone upright cabinets. “Help me with this thing.” He said with a gesture.

“The what?”

Mustang stood at one corner, his hands at the ready. “A few pieces of wood won’t hold him.”

“You’re a real jerk, you know that?” His smile didn’t waver and Ed limped his way over. The case tipped after only two tries, momentum letting it rock back for a precarious moment before another shove sent it crashing down over the hole with a series of fluttering files and a loud, metallic clang.

“So uh,” Ed looked side to side. “Now what?”

* * *

With the sizeable commotion and flurries of smoke wafting out through the window they’d cracked open, it was safe to say they’d missed stealth by a good few feet. Miles, actually.

They ended up booking it, sprinting straight out through the front doors and nosediving back into the tunnel (oh joy), just in case there was suddenly hits out on them and the town was suspicious. Roy wouldn’t be surprised if they’d been easily duped into believing whatever imagined reasons for aggression they might’ve been told. Though they couldn’t be certain that’s what happened at all. Maybe the Tellers hadn’t said a word and the officer stumbling across them had been a bad coincidence.

One that had clearly rattled Ed to some degree.

Roy had taken a swing at asking as they fled the scene, but it was a fruitless endeavour.

“Really?” The younger alchemist had huffed as they went, staggering across the street as high velocity. “ _Now?_ ”

He shut up and silently made sure Ed didn’t fall down the latter that was drilled into the earth. With the option of looking for help within the town thoroughly off the table, they were left in the dark both figuratively and metaphorically.

Ed had spent one of the precious few matches they had onsetting the MP on fire and while it had worked, it had also been reckless. Fortune doesn’t favour the bold, in fact.

It favours the guy with a pistol.

The cavalier use of their resources was still a hotheaded move.Luckily the torch hadn’t completely burnt out by the time they go back underground. Roy managed to coax it back into something substantial through lashing it with fresh oxygen. It burst up in a flash and Ed jumped back almost comically.

 _Almost_ , because he looked alarmed.

Roy sat back with a sigh, shooting Ed a look before he pushed himself up. “That was…” He began, snatching up their light source while his tone took a violent dip. “ _Fucking crazy._ ”

Ed stiffened, his eyes turned towards the corners and spinning on his heel to face the open, hungry mouth of the aqueducts. It was both a velvety string of colour—hinted with aging orange as though pulled from a liquor cabinet—and chalked full of points, filed and sanded to pinheads. It could almost be the reds of a mouth and sharp canine teeth.

Ed hid his face in the shadows, but Roy could still hear the empty way it rang out. Like glass being battered with steel. “Who cares.”

Suddenly, he was in a minefield. Barbed wire sprung up around his feet and twisted through his body. They waltzed between his ribs and heart, fretfully casting sidelong glances and triangular steps to the parts of him that remained untouched by the spikes as though they were the odd ones. He set his jaw, shoulders set back.

“Why’d you do that?” He asked, toeing his way over the ground like there might really be a bomb or two lying dormant underfoot, waiting to spring up in a very ill-timed and unwelcome surprise party with a whole lot of red decor.

Ed matched his pace, taking two wavering, half-steps for every single stride Roy made. He stayed a good few feet ahead and Roy just… let him. Because he was confused and tired and _maybe_ a little angry because Ed had just shaved down their light sources dangerously close to the negatives and the sun wasn’t even up yet. He let the silence spread, lapping at his ankles until it was overhead and threatening to drown him just like the oppressive hollowness of the endless caves. He might have to start holding his breath soon because damn the air was getting dense.

Instead he cut through the quiet with a few brisk steps, too quick for Ed to outrun him. The blond glared at nothing, not even acknowledging the older with a frown. “Fullmetal.” He started, his voice conversational.

“Yeah, _don’t_.” Was Ed’s response. Like razors skimming along an overloaded wire, the two simple words arced in electric currents.

He probably should have listened. It was the more reasonable thing to do and would lead to decidedly less animosity, or whatever it was, bouncing in a ring over Ed’s outline.

“Why’d you waste that match?” Roy said calmly.

Ed looked to him with a snarl. He didn’t let it faze him one bit. He was used to this, after all. Ed would regularly project him full of verbal darts and nasty looks because it was easy. Roy didn’t care because he knew he was mostly just the punching bag.

Which was fine, honestly. It landed him with a bruised ego at worst. Roy had cultivated thick skin in his years of existence, whether it be in the context of a bar or a locker room. He’d heard worse and Ed was hardly ever directing real anger at him anyways. It was performative; a clever act to throw people off his trail and make them miss all the microscopic moments when Ed was a kid.

Because he _was a kid_.

Like, _right now_. He was cagey and defensive and still clawing his way through childhood, as bloodied and torn as his had ended up being. So, Roy would have patience, as much as it pained him, and not let the bitter scowl do anything beyond drive a single nail into his soul.

Because he’d hoped the kid had trusted him more than that.

“Well?”

Ed looked away and the knifes came back to his voice. They bloomed wickedly. “He started shooting.”

“He did,” Roy said with a nod, “but he wasn’t aiming at the floor.”

Ed wouldn’t have gotten tagged, not even with a one in a million ricochet.

His metal arm drew upwards, gripping the opposite sleeve and twisting the fabric. Roy kept his expression neutral but made about a dozen annotations in his mind, checking off the boxes for red flags with every new tick he caught. “Why the hell does that matter?” Ed hissed. “Excuse me for having reflexes.”

His eyebrows quirked up a little. “Is that what they are? Reflexes?” The kid didn’t respond. Roy stared at him hard. “Are _reflexes_ why you keep flin—“

“Would you _shut up?!_ ” He hissed.

“Since you refuse to say anything, _no_ , I won’t.”

Ed’s arms dropped down, his feet sticking in place and he _whirled_ , the repressed emotions of before flying at full force. It was rage.

“ _Refuse to say anything?!_ ” He repeated incredulously. “What is there to say? That I didn’t take too kindly to a gun going off? Well—“ His hands were shaking, Roy noted absently. Ed sneered. “— _excuse me_ for being an _inconvenience_. I already _told you_ what happened. Got knocked out, tossed into a cellar, broke out. _That’s it._ Just because you’re a paranoid prick doesn’t mean I’m suddenly hiding something!” Ed stepped back, looking a lot younger than he was supposed to, both hands curled tight enough to cut crescents into his palm and bleach his knuckles. “And besides that I don’t owe you an explanation so back the _fuck_ off.”

Roy blinked, nonplussed and caught entirely off guard by the outburst. Though what exactly he’d been expecting from the kid was still up in the air, he knew it wasn’t _that_. Maybe Ed would brush him off until Roy got too worn out for staging a casual interrogation, or maybe he’d shrug and say it had been impatience or a spur of the moment decision.

Revenge against one of the people who’d apparently locked him in a cellar.

But the anger was being focused squarely on Roy. And so he stumbled.

“I—what?” His heel skidded over the ground in an aborted step back. Ed, for a split second, looked terrified. Like he didn’t even notice that he’d started to shout in the first place and his eyes darted to Roy’s hand.

(Why? Why? Just— _why?_ )

The look was covered up quickly. The blond scoffed and he could see the an alien, chatoyant shine of malice spliced with apprehension. “Is it so hard to believe that I’m not lying? You said yourself I’m bad at the anyways, remember.” He spat.

“No I… I got that.” Roy made sure to be careful with his response because suddenly Ed had turned far more volatile than he’d been minutes ago. He couldn’t afford to set the kid off any more. Roy had started to see the way he’d started flinching back or getting defensive when the older spoke. He had a terrible guess as to why, but didn’t want to magnify the idea any more than his imagination already had.

For whatever reason that he c _ertainly didn’t know_ , Ed’s trust in him had waned. It had been papery to begin with, with how he dodged concern and refused help like it was a sport, but now…

If the link that held their necessity-born faith was beginning to break, then no, Roy couldn’t afford for Ed to hate him right now, whether it was preformed or real.

That could be saved for another day.

“Great!” Ed shot back. “Now stop talking.”

Roy eyed the younger with a low inhale. “You know you _can_ trust me, right?”

Ed stiffened. “No, actually. I _don’t_ know that. And neither do you. People are shitty.” He bit out, kicking at an outlying stone and watching it tumble out of sight.

“Fullmetal.”

“ _What?_ ” He snarled.

The older shut his eyes before turning to Ed, shifting his pace so he’d be able to look him in the eyes. “People don’t just turn on you.”

Ed barked out a hollow, haunted laugh. “Oh, _yes they do!_ Want proof? I’ve got plenty.”

And Roy knew what he meant by that. Ed was referring to family and friends; to all the adults in his world that had either fallen to the whims of life, paying the ultimate price a little too soon, and the ones who’d just flat out left. A death of image, so to speak. He’d been betrayed enough times to be familiar with the feeling and had enough adults dole out cruelty for a lifetime.

But Ed’s not stupid and he… he hadn’t _misread_ the words. That had been a purposeful, cynical way to look at it that didn’t give the benefit of the doubt.

Roy tried again. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

_C’mon, you stubborn brat. Have a little faith in me._

Once again, he breathed in a measured exhale. Roy watched the jagged frown be flattened across the blond’s face in stubborn defiance, reluctant as though the idea of people sticking around wasn’t worth the effort.

“Yes you do. Or else you’re a lot stupider then I thought.”

“Guess I’m _stupid_ then.” Ed snapped.

_You should know better. You do know better._

“Do I have to spell it out?”

 _Don’t make me swallow my pride over this. Hughes will never let me live it down_.

“…No.” The expression faded away.

“Good.” The older responded. “You should know better than that.”

Ed looked tired and a bit despondent, but he nodded once.

Their pace resumed. Ed didn’t drift as far away this time. His steps became a little surer. Roy decided to leave the peace where it stood, quietly leading the way into some new nightmare and only broke the silence after the tension started to evaporate. Ed seemed perfectly content acting like the conversation hadn’t happened, so Roy followed suit. They lapsed into something with less hanging weights.

* * *

Ed kept thinking his fear threshold was its its limit. With all that had happened, at each turn, he thought that surely this was it. Surely this was at bad as thing would get and yet… it got worse. It was like he was daring the world to throw as much terror as it could at him and the world delivered.

The corpses hadn’t been the worst of it. Neither had the revelation that the MPs weren’t on his side and that the Tellers were gunning for his head on a stick. Not the fact that people were being dragged down into an inky grave for the sake of some imagined reason.

It wasn’t the jars of putrid flesh that was stacked amongst itself or anything else from that cellar. Not the MP finding their hiding spot in the archives or the crushing hopelessness of being lost without light for hours on end.

The worst of it he had done to himself.

Mustang pressed and little too hard and Ed _snapped_. He grew vicious and vengeful, carelessly yelling at the older man, completely forgetting that it was stupid and dangerous and that he really, _really_ shouldn’t. He’d been graceless and let all the rage and hate take over for far too long.

And when he came back to himself after it was overpowering. He couldn’t even bring himself to look at Mustang. He was probably seething, hand posed to snap or something equally terrible.

The horror nearly drove Ed to his knees. He had swayed on his feet, mind racing far too quickly, only the occasional coherent though slipping through.

Mostly it was just babbling. He couldn’t decipher most of it. Some, though, were overpowering.

_Oh god._

_He’s going to kill me._

But, of course, he didn’t. Ed somehow managed to keep up the facade. Now his hands were stuck in his pockets where they shook.

* * *

“How many matches do you have left?”

“Two.”

Roy grimaced inwardly. “Better than one, I suppose.”

Ed cast a sidelong glance, smiling lopsidedly in a way that cried _condescension_ so loudly it might as well have been handwritten by the kid himself, chicken scratch and all. It was fantastically plastic and fake. “Never knew you were such an optimist.”

“ _Please_ , it’s math.”

“Uh-huh.” The younger hummed back. Roy frowned, rising to the bait just for the sake of doing so. Ed, with all his faults and hard steering into aggression with one hand out the window, was still good at being a distraction.

“Two is just more than one. It’s not optimism.”

The blond gapped at him. “ _You can count?_ ”

“You are insufferable.”

“Answer the question, Colonel.”

He sighed, shooting Ed a mild glare. “Do you have any idea of where we’re headed?”

“Vaguely.” They came to a fork in the paths. Roy was ready to take a pause, but Ed just took a sharp turn and marched onwards. “I know there’s an exit way out by the west side, close to the tar pits.”

A little ban of dread wrapped itself around his stomach. “Let me guess: dumping grounds?”

“Yep. We’re just lucky like that.”

“Lucky, huh.” He mused. “Not how I’d put it.”

“Well then how _would_ you put it?” Ed demanded.

“Damned by any deity that exists. Something along those lines.”

“I take it back. You’re a raging pessimist.”

The older man shook his head, hefting the torch a little higher and gazing up at the ceiling. How had these been made?

It looked like an army of moles had burrowed their way through the countryside, or a colony of ants that’d been magnified went off the rails in the architecture department. He reached out, resting the tips of his fingers against the wall and feeling the crevices.

Had this ever even been an aqueduct? The tunnels were hard and adorned with spikes that flowing water would’ve chiseled down to rounded edges. Perhaps they’d been changed from their original layout, or maybe the water just ran so low that it didn’t reach high enough in order to have filed the stone.

Hughes had said the town was suffering from long droughts, but then again, all of the information thus far had been falsified, or at the very least tampered with. He wasn’t about to let those statement have any gravity, and it hardly mattered anyways. Whether they’d been made to ferry in clean water to not, they were being used like a currying system for corpses now.

The voice beside him interrupted the musings. “Why d’ya think they had all those papers?”

“Pardon?”

Ed made a fidgety little gesture. “The newspapers, I mean. Why would they keep them? And where’d they come from anyways?” Roy chuckled, meet with a harsh glare from the younger boy. “You prick.” Ed crossed his arms, gingerly avoiding the still bright and angry burns.

The dark haired man smirked. “Gonna go out on a limb and say they’re from the town’s newspaper.”

“They’re not though!” Ed insisted. “That’s the thing. So, I found the article about the Robinsons by accident, right?”

“Okay…?”

“It wasn’t from Blackwell. It was from the place they’d been planning to move to and it was the only mention of that big damn tar sink.” The blond told him.

He opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated. Usually places like this thrived off gossip and petty debacles. Maybe they didn’t have the funds for a paper? No, that couldn’t be it. They were rolling in yellowed wheat and perfectly manicured crops.

“Actually, yeah.” He brought his free hand to his chin in thought. “Why would they keep the evidence…”

“Or tell anyone at all.” Ed added on.

“Well, maybe they didn’t tell anyone.”

“How so?”

Roy meet Ed’s eyes. “Think about it: they’ve been doing this— _whatever_ it is—for a while.” Ed nodded carefully, his brow creased in concentration. Roy tapped the wall with the back of his hand. “If the ones they’re offing are trying to leave, they’d need to give an excuse to friends or family.”

The blond muttered something unintelligible under his breath and Roy could tell he was starting to lose the kid. Ed practically lived in the weeds of complex problems, veering off road into dandelions, blissfully picking prickly little unnamed plants and swan diving through the fray. It was where he tended to thrive and here Roy was, watching it happen in real time, Ed’s mind sprinting ahead. “They’ve got a built in reason for not being able to find the bodies too.” He said, almost as though to himself. Softly, a little bit dazed.

Roy tried to maintain his footing as the ground grew a bit uneven. “Maybe they collected the papers before they could circulate. Couldn’t burn them without the smoke making people suspicious.”

“But why would they go through all the trouble of rounding up hundreds of articles from other places and leave them where they could be found—“

Ed blinked. “Oh.”

“What?”

“They didn’t let the librarian in the archives. It was always locked.”

The path narrowed.

“So no one would’ve been able to get in anyways.” Roy finished contemplatively.

Ed grabbed him by the sleeve, wordlessly yanking him into a little hole-in-the-wall shaft that they would’ve walked right past. It was like an optical illusion built into the stone, equally wide and tall but absolutely _draped_ with oily blackness.

“I guess… it make sense.” Ed replied quietly.

Roy looked up. “Something wrong?”

The kid offered a watery smile, making a grand, sweeping motion to their surroundings. “Besides, like, everything?”

If it weren’t for the odd underpinnings in his tone, Roy might’ve choked out a laugh. “Yeah. Besides all that.”

“No, not really.”

He sounded brittle. Fragile, actually. The older alchemist scanned Ed for… _something_. His foot seemed the same as before, expression a little downcast but neutral. His hands swayed at his side. Outwardly, he was the same as ever, a little beaten down but still trudging on.

“You’re a bad liar.” He settled on after a moment.

Ed breathed out a long sigh. “Can I ask you something?”

His eyebrow climbed upwards, but he didn’t voice the curiosity. Roy fixed his eyes on what laid directly ahead, sure that his gaze was away from the blond before he spoke. “Shoot.”

Even in trying to give some semblance of privacy by not directly looking, as dull and meaningless as it would be in the end, Roy could still hear. “The graveyard in East City, up on the north end…” Metal fingers clicked against one another in a languid rhythm, pulsing like a dying heartbeat. “Any idea how much a plot costs?”

Well _that_ was a curveball from left field if he ever saw one. Sports analogies are interchangeable. Not the point.

Why would he want to know about graveyard expenses?

“No. I can find out though.” He struggled to keep his eyes forward because it was _so much easier_ to read people when you can see their expression. Even people like Ed, who were the human equivalent of a leather-bound journal tied with wires and a padlock. “Why do you ask?”

The boy fell silent for a long moment. His steps swayed and Roy came close to blindly reaching out to make sure Ed didn’t topple over.

Then, softly, he replied. “They’ve killed a lot of people here.”

“I... I see.”

All those newspapers had been like a slap in the face, hadn’t it? Knowing about death, seeing it be disembodied was one thing. But seeing words on a page had a strange sort of finality to it, confirming the reaping as true and proclaiming it through the mouths of friends and family. A shorthanded eulogy that could travel far longer than any wake.

Paper was cold and clinical; the final straw in a balancing act that caused those on the tightrope to plummet. Roy might be able to detach himself from loss of life, he’d had enough practice after all, but Ed?

Roy stole a glance and was just… at a loss.

Ed looked really, really tired. What could he possible do to help? _Nothing_.

Contact would be meet with violent protests and if he simply listened, the younger alchemist would be set on a rather dark set of train tracks with little hope of derailing.

“It’s not really fair.”

“No, it’s not.” Roy conceded gently.

“It’s kinda dumb, but at least if there was some kind of headstone, or a memorial… they wouldn’t just disappear.” The blond’s voice was sticking to his throat, forced out word-by-word.

He wanted to tell Ed to stop. He didn’t owe an explanation on why he’d be upset. People had _died_. That was reason enough and listening to this wrecking ball of a person dwindle into something a breeze could ruin was much harder than it should’ve been.

Roy shook his head resolutely. “It’s not dumb.”

“It _feels_ dumb.” Ed replied, his voice tight.

Roy could almost taste the trepidation that toiled through the air, mockingly easy and graceful in its effortlessness. “And I’m telling you _it’s not_.” He emphasized.

“Forty years is a long time.”

Roy torn his eyes from the never-ending pathway, breaking his own rule to look over the younger alchemist. His face hadn’t changed, the unmoving expression still hammered firmly into place but like always, it was the eye that gave him away.

They were spiritless and low to the ground with an anchor weighing over them dauntingly. “Are you okay?”

“I… it’s just,” Ed swallowed thickly. “That’s a lot of people. I didn’t even _know_ them and it feels shitty.”

“Hey,” Roy hovered a hand over Ed’s shoulder, still unsure of how it might be received but being positively _badgered_ by all the conflicting voices in his head to do something, “you know this isn’t on you, right?”

He blinked down, seeming to find comfort in the mismatched, enervated movement of his own feet. “I know but—“

“But _nothing_.” The older interjected. Ed twitched at his raised voice. “This started before either of us were in the picture.”

Ed didn’t seemed convinced. His arms wrapped around himself a little tighter, digging into the fabric of his sleeves. Roy’s voice grew more solid. “Fullmetal, I’m serious. There’s no way you can put this on yourself.”

Ed finally met his eyes.

They were filled to the brim with anger. The kind that doesn’t burst forward or make itself known, but crawls under the skin and festered into hate like a sliver into infection.

Ed’s head tilted by a fraction, apathy written in messy scripts across his face. “You wanna know something terrible?” He asked lightly.

Roy stared down at him, feeling the band of dread constrict, knotting his stomach into a plait. “Do you want to tell me?”

“I saw one of the bodies. Up close.”

“When did—“

The boy didn’t let him finish. “I just didn’t know a body could look so similar to alchemy.”

“ _Alchemy?_ ” Roy asked breathlessly.

“Humans.”

“What—“ And it all snapped into focus. Dizzyingly sharp and without an ounce of water to dilute what he was being told. “— _oh_.”

_Humans._

_Alchemy._

_His mother._

Ed smiled weakly. “Awful, right?” It felt like he’d been punched in the throat, choking on his own words and unable to form a response. Ed shrugged, the self deprecating smirk drawn down into a shallow curve. “I didn’t want to think about it to too much.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Don’t apologize. It sucks but it’s not like that’s your fault.”

Roy could only watch, shocked down to the core and grasping for something to say. “You… your hands are shaking.”

“So they are.”

They reached a dead end. Rungs slithered up the wall just like before, caked with fresh dirt and muddy footprints.

A metal box was jammed in one corner, humming and vibrating like a little engine. Ed stopped moving, his head turned away.

Below the primitive stairway, a foot away from the buzzing box, there sat a heap of clothes.

In the clothes, there lay a body.

It was painted in dark, ink-like splatters, pooled around the head in a half-dried mess. Roy wheeled back with a gasp, the smell ramming into him viciously in all of its soured, decomposing glory. Despite the horror and alarm sending bell clamouring through his ears, Roy couldn’t look away.

It was the same instinct that might drive someone to prick their finger just to watch the blood well up—morbid, _cruel_ curiosity.

Ed grabbed him by the elbow, his eyes shadowed by his hair and directed sternly down. “C’mon.”

Roy felt dazed, still locked on the corpse with his jaw slack. It’s not as though he’d never seen bodies before.

Far from it.

He’d lived among the dead for months at a time, greeted with gore and the rising sun in a red-bleached landscape. He’d seen them scorched and mutilated beyond recognition, torn up from the inside out curtsy of those who lusted after blood and total victory. Roy had seen more than his fair share of bodies and _burned_ twice as many. But that was the thing: they would either be distorted husks of what _could_ have once been people, or simply appear very pale thanks to waltzing with bullets.

They would be be buried, cremated or, on occasion, embalmed and sent home.

He was no stranger to death, but decay was its own beast unto itself.

“Colonel.” Ed pulled him forward. “Come _on_.”

Roy blinked the sand dunes and heat from his vision, replaced with the macabre scene before him. Ed refused to lift his head and the unspoken words were clear as day.

_Don’t make me see it again._

“Right.” He stammered.  
The boy gingerly stepped around the corpse and started up the latter, slowly with his steps hitching in the same way they had before and his head tilted back to stare at the hatch, however far up it was. Roy tried not to drift back to the pile of flesh.

He really, really tried.

But _damn_ was it almost hypnotic, in a sickly fashion that made his stomach churn uncomfortably, but hypnotic nonetheless. They’d left it… _him_ here to dry. Or at least let the remnants of pitch slide off so his skin wouldn’t dissolve under a slight touch. Now it had turn leathery, glazed with a shining set of bruises that wrung all the way up his neck to his scalp. His eyes had become milky with disease, tear ducts clogged up as something glossy filtered out.

His knuckles had been skinned. There was twists of bone beneath the flesh that didn’t look right and the man was freckled with overlarge welts, some of them leaking and some looking as though they were actually moving.

No… no they didn’t just _look_ like they were moving. There was a _thing_ inside there, chewing through the tissue and wriggling between open pores. Something wet and long tumbled from the sticky hairline. It landed with a mute flop and started crawling back to its meal a moment later, squirming between the dead man’s teeth.

The mechanical rattling that bumbled out from the box did nothing to cover up the sound of the worms and maggots as they chewed and gnawed and _swallowed_.

His jaw was broken, Roy noted, hanging off one temple limply with the gums pressed to the dirt. Where a tongue might’ve been, there sat a stretch of jagged flesh, hacked away by a dull blade. The meaty recess was bled dry, looking pale and ghostly.

Roy’s jaw clenched and he made a silent promise to not tell Ed that the jars he’d seen likely contained a piece of muscle ripped straight from the victims mouth.He shut his eyes, finally forcing himself to turn away and start following Ed back up to the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the cliffhanger from last week didn't kill you too much! Oh and I hope the clue from a few chapter back makes sense now!  
> We're in the final stretch, but we all know how terrible a turn things can take in just a few moments, don't we.  
> Ah, such is the way of life. Also My Brand. And what you look at the time! It's Cool Artwork Hour: [boop](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/635319856794861568/liathgray-this-it-to-make-up-for-not-posting)
> 
> 18-5-13-5-13-2-5-18 20-8-5 7-21-1-18-4 4-15-7-19


	13. Nightmare-like Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Non-graphic violence. Threats. Discussion of deaths and murder.

It was still dark.

There was a slight, almost unseeable blush of indigo on the horizon where the sun would eventually rears its stupid head, but it wouldn’t be for another hour or two at best. Ed eased himself down into the grass, avoiding the spots that had been trampled a few days earlier and still bore stains.

If Mustang wanted to look at a mangled body, he could take as long as he wanted. Ed was perfectly content waiting, surrounded by the night air that seemed to breathe energy into him. It was calm and still, with nothing more than a breeze and occasional rats chirp humming through the fields.

Lucky for him the chains that held the cellar-like doors shut were plain old iron and melted apart with a single transmutation. He took his time scrubbing the afterimage of Mr. Robinson, splayed out and left to succumb to rigor mortis. It would make things less messy, he supposed. Leaving it out to dry.

If the flesh was still filmed by slime and slick with oily blisters the process of dividing it would be rather—

_Stop it._

He breathed, drinking in the lights above and the moon, cut down to a slit and positively _grinning_ at him. Ed almost cursed the damn thing out with how condescending it felt. He scanned the area, picking out boxy shadows that hopefully were houses. Further off, he could see the wall.

Ed leaned back, his automail half folded behind him, propping him up just enough that he wouldn’t fall over. The angle flipped the world on its head. Wasn’t that fitting?

An inversion of something that was supposed to be unthreatening and normal. Instead of a slumberous, lush town, Blackwell Springs had turned itself inside out, right into a waking nightmare.It was like all the bones and organs stuffed into the village had been put on display to watch as it ticked in horrific slow motion.

If the tar pits were a gapping mouth, then the tunnels were the veins. The land was skin and the townsfolk were unwilling participants being chewed up and digested into the system they didn’t even realize was looming underfoot, ready to break them down.

Ed heard a dull _clang_ and straightened, feeling his ears buzz from the head rush as he staggered back up onto his feet. Mustang shoved the hatch open, somehow having kept the torch without burning his nose off.

He glanced around before settling back on Ed. “The tar pits?”

The blond pointed towards a stretch of pale trees, dotted with handprints. “That way.”

Mustang squinted through the dark, his eyes still not having taken the time to adjust. “Okay, I can’t see shit. Is there a house nearby?”

Ed might've snickered to himself had his mouth not been mostly sealed up. “Look to the left. There’s one at, like, five o’clock.”

“The lights are off.” The Colonel said.

Ed felt the wash of disgust and terror that had fallen over him clear up, if only by an inch. It gave him the room to grin with the devil prancing in his eyes, swinging for the fences on every demonic front. “You up for some breaking and entering?”

The look of incredulousness on the older alchemists face let Ed know that it had worked like a charm and his knack for appearing with twin horns had not been tampered with. That was still his crowning achievement that he’d lord over anyone that he could, superior officers included.

Not that military positions really mattered at the moment. The Colonel could very well try to pull rank but he knew just as well as Ed that the likelihood of it being little more than a perk was slim to none. Which was excellent for Ed, really, cause Mustang had this idiotic tendency to faceplate into self-sacrifice when there still might be another way out.

It was one skill Ed would grab with both hands and hang on for all he was worth (his weight in saffron, of course) even if the chances were microscopic. He was just _special_ like that. Others would say cripplingly stubborn, and they were right, but Ed typically preferred to call it strong willed.

Mustang wiped the exasperation from his face in a swift motion, replaced with something more admonishing. “We can just _knock_.”

Ed frowned. “You’re no fun.”

The open space was unnerving to say the least. After spending hours upon hours underground, with only the brief interlude of archival nonsense, having no walls threatening to cave in felt dangerous and venerable. Being in the open just seemed wrong. Mustang could feel the air of anticipation as well, his head constantly checking over his shoulder and narrowing his eyes at every stray tree or fencepost that offended him with its presence.

The way gusts of wind would splay mindlessly through the hills was both refreshing and cause to make Ed squirm.

Despite the tepid climate, he felt cold.

An odd thought struck him out of nowhere. He spun to face Mustang. “Did you _drive_ here?” He asked incredulously.

“Pardon?”

“Did you drive here.” Ed repeated. “It takes two days to get here by train. And, okay, I was out for a while and I didn’t exactly have a window to keep track of time but I didn’t think it was that long—“

Mustang put a stop to his increasingly nervous ramblings with a hand rapping against Ed’s skull once. “You’re speed-talking.” He informed mildly.

Ed frowned. “I am _not_.”

“Yeah you are. You do it all the time.”

The blond gave him an icy look, topped off with a sky-high heaping of annoyance. Mustang just made a gesture, his hand rolling out in a turn. “Either you’re overthinking something or going on about alchemy, you start talking a mile a minute. I’m pretty sure your brother is the only one who can actually understand what you’re saying when it happens.”

_Wait… really?_

The Colonel carried on, glancing down at Ed to watch for a reaction. “And to answer your question, yes, I drove. Some of us can reach the pedals. You can stop freaking out now.”

“You absolute prick.” Ed grumbled. “I wasn’t _freaking out_. Two days would have just been a long time to be knocked out.”

The older man scoffed, his expression disbelieving and a little bit challenging. “What? Like half a day _isn’t?_ ”

Ed kicked at the straw underfoot, hearing it crunch and squelch into the mud. The teasing atmosphere faded when Ed failed to think up a good answer. He jammed both hands into his pocket with a irritated, undecipherable mutter. Mustang cast him a more serious look.

Ed glared back. “So if you’ve got a car here, why not just book it out of here and get to a neighbouring town as soon as you found the stupid tunnels?”

Unless he hadn't found the tunnels at all. Mustang never did explain why he was down there in the first place. Ed shook off the thought and waited for an answer, looking up expectantly.

The dark haired alchemist hesitated. “Are you going to laugh?”

“I dunno. Is it funny?”

Mustang looked the other way, shoulders pulled up towards his ears and voice awkwardly halting. “Overheated.”

Ed gapped for a moment.

It almost _was_ funny—the Flame Alchemist’s car overheating. Oh, sweet irony. How he would never let the older man live this down ordinarily. But the blond’s mouth just dropped open, utterly stunned by yet another epiphany. Another thing that lined up all too cleanly. The Colonel raised an eyebrow, looking dubious. “You’re not making fun of me.” He stated plainly.

“You’re joking.”

“I… I’m not. What is it?”

He wanted to bang his head on a wall or shrivel up into a ball of nothing. This was insane. “ _Fuck’s sake_.”

Mustang gave him an unguarded, alarmed look. He reached out a hand, looking to shake Ed from his apocalyptic revelation.

 _Ed didn’t flinch._

He didn't. He didn't. He didn't.

The older man recoiled, brow pressed in a hard line. “Hey, snap out of it.” He said, sounding less cutting than usual. Less… demanding. Quieter, as though he was talking to a spooked animal. Ed might’ve been insulted if that wasn’t so sickeningly close to how he actually felt. “What is it?”

Ed’s shoulders sagged. “ _Please_ tell me it wasn’t the spark plugs.”

“What—how’d you know?”

The blond laughed bitterly, rubbing a hand across his face. He felt spacey and oddly pliant for a moment before collecting himself. “You’re not gonna _believe_ how the Robinson’s car broke down.”

Mustang stared at him, wide eyed with confusion and shock. “You’re serious, aren’t you.” He said after a moment of deliberation, sounding uncharacteristically defeated. Ed shot him a sympathetic look. He felt just as frustrated. Pieces kept falling into place one by one and it was shaping up to be a pretty nasty image, the puzzle pieces dirtied by their own story.

“I guess that’s why there was a cord out there too.”

“Do I even want to know?” Mustang asked.

“Out by the tar pits,” Ed explained, “I wanted to make sure they were actually real before jumping to conclusions. Newspapers misreport things all the time. There was a long wire, half of it kept going into the woods, the other went into the ground.” His hands tugged at his sleeves, the burn on his wrist once again starting to itch and flare. “If I had to guess, that box was a generator. They probably were making cars break down on purpose.”

Mustang eyed him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Huh? I just _told_ you.”

“No, no.” The older man shook his head. “Before, when you first found it. You could’ve called in.”

“I…” Ed faltered.

Did he even have a reason? It had been a sense of dismissiveness, back before he’d gone and dug up any waxy, melting body parts. He convinced himself it wasn’t necessary when it really, really _was_. Ed had waited until the very last second to seek out help from Mustang and it had cost him dearly.

It’s not like he could say that, though. That he’d spent an hour agonizing over a receiver, trying to talk himself down from the proverbial cliff that would’ve been admitting he needed backup. That he needed help and had been so convinced it wouldn't matter that he just didn't bother. Now they were up to their necks in murder and one hell of an entombed conspiracy.

It had cost him in more ways than one. Ed couldn't say it aloud now. Not with threats hanging over his head and fear wrenching away at his nerves.

“I didn’t get the chance.” He said quietly.

The silence stretched on for a moment, careless and apathetic in how it waltzed between the imaginary clockwork hands.

Mustang spoke in pure, unfazed disapproval. “ _Still_ a bad liar.”

Ed winced, but let the topic die. It wasn’t one he was too keen on explaining anyways.

For a while longer, it seemed as though their destination—the little house sleeping on a hill—was entrenched with illusions. It felt surreal, like each step was taking them in reverse and the house looked vaugly further away. Ed squinted and blinked, he tilted his head and rubbed the sand from his eyes. It ran from them for what felt like ages, but eventually it loomed above the two alchemists.

The silhouette came into focus, its details bleeding outwards. It was a little wicker roof thing with dirt bathed windows and an old rocking chair perched out by the steps. They stood side by side, staring up at the cottage. It looked ghostly and Ed most definitely didn’t want to go inside, but he swallowed back a mouthful of protests and went to tap on the door.

It creaked open the second his hand touched the wood.

Ed blinked, exchanging a nervous look with Mustang before nudging the door open. The hinges wailed loudly as it swung in a tight arc, knocking into the opposite wall loud enough to make Ed jump.

“This is… really creepy.” He stated with a shudder. Mustang peered inside, holding his light source to the frame in search of any switches.

“Either people around here are really trusting about their locks or this place is abandoned.”

Ed was tempted to slip past the older man to get a better look, but decided against it at the sight of a barrage of mirrors scattered through the living room. He knew the types of dirty tricks reflections could play in the dark and, personally, Ed liked when his skin stayed on his body, _thank you very much_.

A gale of wind rattled at the windows, sending the drapes scattering in heavy flaps while the torch almost sputtered out. It was a picturesque scene pulled straight from a campfire story, dusted by moonlight and made up of sharp corners.

The fire caused little flashes to pipe up along the walls, making a coat rack look like an overbearing monster and the furniture was turned into pale people crouched down on all fours, ready to crawl forward at a moments notice. They shifted between pale sheets and naked bodies. The younger alchemist scrubbed at his eyes in a fruitless attempt to make the illusions stop.

“I… I don’t think they place would even _have_ a phone.” Ed gave it another glance, his eyes catching on a phantom lurking in the stairwell and he firmly decided _nope_ and readied to skip right on down those steps and find someplace that didn’t send shivers up his spine.

That was the plan, anyways. But then, of course, a voice shattered his soul like the sweetest type of dynamite.

“Can I help you?”

They both jumped, whirling to face the disembodied words that had come from behind. There stood a young woman dressed in white, a little girl clutching her hand and looking equally pristine. Her eyebrows drifted upwards quizzically.

Ed found that his ability to speak had flown off for its vacation time, so he could only blink at her in shock, trying to calm the spike of nerves that skirted around in his stomach.

Mustang collected himself a bit more gracefully.

“Sorry for the intrusion.” He said smoothly, suddenly so professional like he hadn’t been a hair away from bickering with Ed, and entire child, mere minutes ago. “I’m assuming this is your house?”

She nodded, the child hiding behind her legs carefully peeked out at the two alchemists. Ed would’ve attempted for a smile if he wasn’t so painfully aware of how he looked: dirty, singed and more than a little bruised up. He settled for a friendly nod. The child gave a cautious wave.

“Yes, it is.” Her head dipped into a quick bow. “And you…” She squinted at Ed. “Weren’t you the alchemist everyone was excited about?”

“Ah, yeah. I guess so.”

She nodded, her head tilting to one side and looking them over critically. Mustang sidestepped, making it so he wasn’t blocking the entrance anymore and molding his voice into something grateful and almost _nice_. “You wouldn’t happen to have a telephone we could borrow, would you?”

Her face pinched a little. After a moment, she turned, kneeling down and whispering something to the little girl. The child straightened, a big smile spreading across her cheeks and nodding enthusiastically. The girl pranced down the steps and took off running, disappearing around the other side of the house in a blink.

“Right,” The woman smiled at them, “come on in. I’ve got a phone in the drawing room."

“Sorry if we startled you,” Mustang started apologetically.

“No, no, it’s alright. It looks like something troublesome happened, hasn’t it?” She calmly led them inside, moving by candlelight that waited on a nearby table. Mustang extinguished the torch because, _hey_ , at least there was the promise of help in the distant future.

The older man opened his mouth to answer, but the grave look on his face made Ed tense. He elbowed the Colonel hard in the rib with an urgent gesture that read, in short, as _don’t freak her out!_

Mustang scowled back at him, silently readying for a screaming match expressly translated by how hard they could glare.

As they shuffled through the front hall, more wicks were brightening the space and doing nothing to make it any less unsettling. The chair sitting out on the porch creaked and groaned as the wind was slitted against it.

“Nothing to worry about, really. We just…” Mustang glance to Ed, who shrugged in the most deliberately unhelpful way possible. The _hell_ did the Colonel want him to do? Make something up? How many times would the old idiot have to learn that Ed couldn’t lie unless it was by omission? It had been reiterated enough over the past few hours alone, but, Ed supposed, the older alchemists skull is pretty damn dense. “We just need to contact a neighbouring MP station.” He finally said.

“Oh, of course.” She brought them to a wide threshold, framed by pale trimming and rosy wallpaper. She pointed to a table, atop it there was, as promised, a regular old telephone.

Ed found himself genuinely a little surprised. It’s not as though radio technology is all that uncommon—it had wormed its way into most professional and domestic spaces at this point—but Blackwell Springs was just so detached from it all. It felt too timeless for there to be technology outside of the safety bubbles within town square. Way out here, on the cusp of woodlands and dwelling among wheat stalks, it seemed off that a modern thing would dare exist.

That, and Ed couldn’t remember seeing any power lines running past the main few blocks.

“I’ll make the call.” Ed stepped forward before Mustang could refute, earning a satisfactory glance of confusion before meeting it with the same pointed frown as before.

_Don’t freak her out._

His face hardened, the twitch in his jaw and delicate balance tipping through his eyes speaking more volume than words, lest they’d been hollered, of course. Mustang made a small gesture, his hand held low enough for the young woman not to see: his fingers curled back, the top two knuckles bent while the rest stayed straight, then two fingers held above his bent thumb. It happened in a moment, but Ed caught on easily enough.

 _Eastern command_.

Tell them to contact surrounding authorities and stay on the line as long as possible. Roll out a laundry list of those they knew were involved. Ring up as many extensions as he could remember. That was the plan.

If the call didn’t go through, whether it be due to the line coming from, like, east of tumbleweeds and south of no mans land, or simply the chronic understaffed-ness of Eastern HQ, then go to _Hughes_.

He hung onto Mustang’s sharp gaze for an extra moment before leaving him to serve like the silver tongued little distraction he was. Ed couldn’t tune them out completely, the aching through his arm and leg was sure to keep him very present, much to his dismay, but he could still focus on his task.

“Oh, how rude of me. I haven’t—my name’s Seil Lla.”

They traded pleasantries and Ed could almost feel the cold glances being jabbed into his back as he quietly ran a hand over the receiver, feeling around the make sure that the cord wasn’t frayed.

“I hope you aren’t offended that I sent my daughter off… I didn’t want her to be frightened, is all. She's an easy scare.”

“Of course,”

Ed breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing the dial tone and went about spinning the numbers into place. He hovered his flesh foot a good few inches off the floor, suddenly very conscious of how dirty they both were in such a spotless, albeit age dusted, home. At least there were no carpets for him to ruin.

All the contact information for Eastern Command was divvied sup by a second set of codes. Which made it hell for most people who were used to only needing to memorize a single set of digits. Ed, however, was hardwired to remember every catalogue he picked up while waiting for a train.

Of _course_ he knew a dozen of the extensions. The first set of numbers that came to mind was for the general phone perched on the wall of Mustang’s office. Seven, five, twenty.

He ignored the way his hand shook and refused to steal a single glance over his shoulder, instead micro-analysing every inflection carefully woven into Mustang’s voice and listening for any hints or warnings.

“You both look a little worn out.” Seil commented.

“Land inspections tend to get a bit more hands on.” He replied.

There was _nothing_ in his tone.

The phone began to ring, Ed’s shoulders grew more tense with each shrill cry, coming like slow blows to his patience.

Her feet shifted a little. ”Yes, I suppose that does make sense.” The woman must’ve leaned her weight against the wall, because Ed heard the plaster murmur out a strained sound as she spoke. “I didn’t know two State Alchemist would be here. I would have gone into town to say hello.”

The phone buzzed against his ear, making his temple vibrate in time with the stagnant melody.

Mustang didn’t budge. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Just politeness, I’d say. We’re taught to respect manners well around here.”

The fifth ring brought Ed to a grinding halt, the tone going deafeningly silent for a moment. Then, something scratched and _clicked_ , the hissing of rubber on rubber that lasted for only a blink. And then—

 _In the hills, there was a well. And in that well, there was a hand. On that hand, there was a ring_. _And on that ring, there was a pearl. And from that pearl there grew a hill…_

Ed slowly put his finger down on the receiver, cutting off the odd, frivolous singing. It sounded like the jeering of children on a playground.

That was… weird. Had some operator redirected him to hold on principal? Ed’s fingers curled, fidgeting around the cylinder held in his hand.

“Your door had been left unlocked,” Mustang said, sounding conversational and _still_ not coding anything into his turn of phrase. Ed grimaced. “Was that unintentional?” Mustang inquired.

The younger alchemist put the numbers back in, slower this time, just in case he’d made a mistake, handpicking the set he knew led straight to the investigations unit. They always had someone up at indescribable times—one of them had to answer.

Fifteen, twenty-one, twenty.

Seil chuckled lightly. “Oh, no. We don’t have any need to lock up around here.”

“Is that so?”

The line began to chime, splitting Ed’s skull right through the middle with every reprise. It seemed to get louder each time, leaping from the first movement to the second as the two adults spoke in meaningless nothings.

“It is.” Seil replied, a smile in her voice.

The phone rang for a fourth time. Ed held his breath for a moment, hoping and pleading and _praying_ —

_In the hills, there was a well. And in that well, there was a hand. And one that hand…_

Again, Ed hung up, baffled and a little uneasy. Twice was a coincidence, not yet a pattern. Ed chewed his lip, willing himself to not fly off the handle before he knew something was wrong for sure. It’s just some strange hold music, after all. Why would that be enough to scare him? It was a children’s chant, not a deathly poem.

Ed steeled himself and tried for the third time. The main foyer had to have a secretary manning it, right? For emergencies and whatnot, there was sure to be someone ready to answer. Eastern command general number, front desk. Fourteen, fifteen, twenty-three.

Mustang cleared his throat a little and Ed took the plunge, stealing a lighting-speed glance to find the Colonel looking urgent and troubled. Seil tucked back her hair, leaving an interval for their quick, miniature shifts in expression.

Ed fired off an equally bewildered shake of his head, eyes darting to the phone in a silent gesture.

They turned back to their tasks the moment their host fixed Mustang once again with a welcoming, cool look. “You’re not worried about somebody breaking in?” He asked.

“Why would I be?”

“Things can happen at night, is all. It’s good to be cautious.”

The phone screamed out its second ring, knocking around inside Ed’s head with casual abandon, bashing his thought process and absolutely stumping his reaction time by a good few seconds. He stood, frozen in place, eyes narrowed and dread sticking its slimly little hands up the back of his throat.

Seil laughed again. “There hasn’t been a crime around here in almost forty years.”

“That’s awfully lucky.” Mustang’s voice was becoming thin, a clear message to Ed to hurry the hell up. But his hand’s had started to become sluggish, uncertain in every shift and dial. He made each rotation cautiously.

“Yes it certainly is. But even if that wasn’t that case,” her voice echoed into the drawing room a bit clearer,“I wouldn’t be all that worried.”

It reached the fifth ring. The ling went off crooning, vomiting out it’s cheery little carol. Ed’s stomach turned.

“Why’s that?”

“I trust my neighbours. They’d spread the word.”

_In the hills, there was a well. And in that well…_

Ed dropped the phone back into its cradle unceremoniously, his head fuzzy and restless. The sound started both Seil and Mustang.

“Fullmetal?”

He flinched. Rather hard, actually.

Ed stared at the ground, his hands starting to skitter manically behind his back while a nervousness worked into way through his skin like oil into scar tissue, raising up the hairs at the nape of his neck and bring back the same feeling he’d gotten the moment he stepped into Blackwell.

The voice that begged him to _turn around_.

“I can’t get anything. It’s just this… song.” He waved helplessly. Mustang’s brow furrowed, the act dropping completely as he stepped into the room. Seil looked on, her rounded features pulled into a concerned look, arms held close to her chest.

Ed shut his eyes for a moment, trying to clear away the fog that had danced its way throughhis mind and bled lethargy into his brain space. “Did you try Hughes?” Mustang whispered.

“Was gonna try his office but…”

The older man held up a hand. Ed, for once in his life, actually fell quiet. “It’s alright. He’s more likely to answer his home number anyways.”

Ed watched anxiously, Mustang’s hand flying across the phone. He took a step back, scanning the room for something— _anything_ to distract himself with so he didn’t accident pass out from holding his breath too long.

He heart had already started to thrum in his veins, loud and uneven. It was like hearing a drummer who kept missing their mark. He jammed his hands into his pockets, tracing the outline of his box of matches, fiddling with the length of braided leather.

Mustang’s expression grew more dreadful. Unsettled in a way Ed had never really seen before, nor did he _want_ to see. The Colonel gripped the speaker in one hand, waiting through each long shriek until it crescendoed into the fifth.

Louder than ever before, the tune came spilling out.

_In the hills, there was a well._

Mustang dropped the phone, his eyes wide and undoubtably _terrified_. He didn’t evenend the call, apparently too shellshocked to stop the melody from droning onwards. Ed staggered back, staring at the older with puzzlement across his face. Mustang swallowed thickly. “Ms. Lla… if you don’t mind my asking, why were you out so late?”

_And in that well, there was a hand._

Both of their gazes slung back to the woman, still innocently smiling with worry on her lips before a small flash of delight came about. She clasped her hands. “Oh, the games.”

“The games?” Mustang repeated. His voice sounded hollow and the discomfort Ed had felt tripled in size, swallowing him up to his ears and pulling cords around his neck tightly. Suddenly, the air tasted sick and Ed’s chest seized.

Seil nodded once. “Yes, yes. That’s what the kid’s like to call them, anyhow.”

 _On that hand, there was a ring_.

The song kept on playing relentlessly, cutting through the air like a knife through flesh. The phone swung limply from its wire. Something lodged in Ed’s throat, heavy and stifling. Mustang’s face was blank save for the beads of sweat that appeared along his brow, his eyes still blown open. “And what would you call it?” He asked.

_And on that ring, there was a pearl._

Her lips pursed, a hand coming up to brush against her chin. She smiled once more, broad as can be and painfully kind. Ed felt like the floor was going to drop out from under him. Something was so very, _very_ wrong and Mustang had gone alarmingly pale.

_And from that pearl there grew a hill…_

Her form swayed with the music.

“A tradition.”

From outside, Ed heard a noise. A grand collection and squabbling, wailing voices that made his arms drop to his sides. He took a horrified step back.The cawing built into a dull roar, dozens of cackles layered into one another until it became a hive of singing.

“ _The watchdogs._ ” He breathed.

Ed’s voice hitched and he grabbed the older man’s arm, gripping it as hard as he could.

“Colonel, we gotta go.”

“What?”

Ed took another blind step away from Seil, her head lolling to the side curiously. He could feel his lungs shorting out, only granting him a single, sharp gulp of air. “We gotta go _now_.”

Mustang looked down at Ed, still numbed by his own revelation. “I—“

The blond felt panic rear its head. “Right now. We need to fucking—“ He kept backpedaling, frantic in his efforts to actually heed the voice he’d brushed off as paranoia. From the word go, he should have _listened_. It screamed at him: _run._

Ed ran.

He blocked out the agony that came from sprinting, one hand latched on Mustangs arm as he barrelled past a horribly calm Seil, darting for the exit. Ed tore the door open—

—and came face to face with a round face and rosy cheeks.

The man was built like a teapot, and on his shoulder rode a little girl dressed in white. Behind him, spread out against the blackened field, was a crowd.

The faces of Blackwell Springs.

Every last one.

* * *

Roy felt paralyzed.

In shock and terror and sickness, all plowing over him at once as he stared up into the face of Alistair Teller.

He should run. He should grab Ed and try to make a break for the wall. Maybe lose them in a pickup of dust or transmute a hole into the ground to escape. Even just to hide at this point.

But he couldn’t move. Ed stood beside him, equally still.

Because… because it was _everyone_.

It wasn’t just the Tellers or the MPs. It wasn’t just a few bad apples, it was the whole damn town that was rotten. They were all clothed in white and blinking innocently.

An awful chorus of wails bounced from far off in the distance, manically singing their warnings.

There was no gas left in the tank and Roy _knew_ that if they so much as blinked; so much as broke the staring match then it would all be going to hell.

There was no way he and Ed could fight them all off.

There was no way they could slip through the cracks or make a mad dash back to the labyrinth below. They were done for.

Alistair grinned. “So glad we could find you in time.” His hands lifted the little girl from his shoulders, setting her gently on the ground. The little girl ran past them, right into her mother’s arms. “You did well, darling.” The woman told her.

People appeared from seemingly nowhere, lining the parameter of the house, standing against the walls and closing in exponentially. They stalked in through the windows, crawling across the panes silently and taking up vigil side by side. Ed was still gripping his arm with a bruising hold, and he looked just a horrified as Roy did.

Both of them knew...

_This was it._

There was no clever solution are fast escape. They were cornered and outmanned a hundred to one.

“Go ahead.” The conductor of this decaying orchestra announced. “Bring them out.”

The townsfolk obliged, dozens of hands grabbing and tearing at his arms, dragging him outside with no more than a soft muttering rippling across them. He heard Ed shout and tried _awfully_ hard to fight them off, his heels digging into the floors and surely trying to wrench himself free.

It didn’t matter.

There was just _too many_ and they deposited the two alchemists in the centre of a wide circle, only a little ways out from the house. “Mind the their hands now, would you?” Alistair chirped, gesturing to a few well built men.

They each grappled with one of Ed’s arms, even as he strained against them, keeping him locked in place while two more kept Roy pinned. He was still half numbed by the shock. Coherency brushes at his mind in a fleeting motion. The man sighed softly, looking disappointed and sincere. “Such a sad thing. Rules are rules, it’s just a pity he’s so young.”

Roy’s senses were returning to him and he felt a glower twist at his face.

“It didn’t have to be this way, you know.” Alistair told them sorrowfully. He walked into the ring, the heels of his shoes taking their time hitting the ground on each step. His pace became a drawl. “If… if you’d just _minded your own_ , none of this would have had to happen.”

Ed was seething, terrified all the same but firing off rounds of rage like it was a hobby. “You did all this.” He growled. “You’ve been murdering people and for _what?”_

Roy desperately wanted to tell Ed to stop. He was wasting his breath on a man who simply didn’t care. A man who was going to kill them.

Alistair _laughed_. He laughed like it was summer and there was a breeze in the air. “Murder? No, no. We haven’t done that.” The blond jerked forward with a vicious look of hate. The man just hummed. “I’ve never _taken_ a life, I’ve merely gifted it. This is—“

“— _tradition_. Yeah, I’ve heard it.” Ed snarled.

“I believe I’ve told you before to watch your _tongue_.” Alistair didn’t even flinch under the scrutiny. Roy glanced around the circle, looking for any kind of opening or weak point that they might be able to break through. All he saw was dark, somber expressions laid out against the night.

“You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to cut out.” Alistair sneered down at Ed, the threat hanging in the air. The kid didn’t back down, defiant as always with a scowl, with the older man towering over him.

He knelt while Ed looked ready try and bit off his fingers. Alistair’s hand darted forward before Ed could even try, grabbing the kid’s jaw in a bruising grip. Ed practically growled. “Listen,” Alistair crooned, “listen to me.”

Roy felt dread take hold in his stomach. He tried to wrestle his way to freedom but it was fruitless. Alistair’s eyes thinned to cheery little slits. “It’s easy, you know. They’re so soft and the blood keeps people from screaming. They try to breath in and it just goes down into their throats.” He chuckled. Ed wrenched back violently, but the grip held him in place. “It’s the mouth that’s the hard part. Getting them to open up.”

The younger alchemist looked panicked. Roy blanched. "But I know a trick. It’s all in the voice.”

Alistair squeezed tightly and for a second Roy thought he was actually going to do it _he was actually going to try to cut out his—_

The man’s hand fell away. He rose back up to his full height, seeming pleased with himself. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ed’s chest heaving in fearful breaths.

Roy spoke to take the attention off the younger, trying not to let the roar of panic drown him. It was impossible because _god this was it and it's too much, too overwhelming and there's too many of them._

They're going to die here, aren't they?

“People will come looking.” He warned. “You think they won’t notice two State Alchemists going missing?”

The man waved him off. “We’ve dealt with outsiders before. They’ll hear of your tragic deaths in the pits and we’ll round up the papers like always.”

“No one will believe you.”

“They certainly believed when their own inspectors moved out here, didn’t they?” He replied warmly, ever-confident because, really, this was normal to him. To _everyone_.

Ed twisted violently, making one hell of an escape attempt and somehow managing to elbow one of his living restraints in the gut, hurt enough to make him cough. Alistair’s expression changed to something a little more pointed, flickering with impatience directed at the men stationed by Ed. “Well? I said _mind their hands_. Rip it off, if you must.”

They nodded, hands clenched tightly as they moved. They were going to… _no._

Roy’s eyes darted, his stomach going cold. “Wait.” He started. “ _Don’t_ —just hold on a minute,”

His voice sounded desperate in his own ears, imploding gracelessness with the force of an earthquake and making his words shake. “You don't have to do this!” He shouted. It felt pathetic and hopeless. It _was_.

Ed realized it too because his demeanour shifted in an instant. The men began to _pull_ on his automail. The crowd of people just bowed their heads, hands folded and staying perfectly still whilst the brutes tried to tear a kid’s arm off. Ed went rigid, his nerves surely growing raw and firing at random. They tugged again experimentally, the blond’s breath caught dangerously in the back of this throat.

Automail wasn’t the same as a normal prothetic. It was wired into a person’s nerves, plated and drilled onto their body like a second skin. Roy watched, wide eyed and panicked as they dug their nails in and _wrenched_.

He whirled to face Alistair, the anger replaced with something lower, almost a plea but not quite. “Stop it. _You—_ “

“There’s nothing for me to stop.” He replied, sweet a cyanide, shaking his head like he was admonishing a child. “This is what we’re meant to do.”

He heard a choked yelp and a switch being flipped. Ed dropped.

He slumped to the ground without so much as a cry and that is where he stayed.

Roy’s vision blurred, hazy with uncertainty at the sight of Ed just… _not moving._

He was heaving in air and curling in on himself, but making no effort to get back on his feet.

It felt wrong.

One of the men hefted his arm, passing it to a bystander and the limb disappeared into the audience of pale sheets.

Automail didn’t just… slip off like that. He looked to Ed, crumpled on the ground and breathing hard. Roy didn’t say a word, just kept his sights trained on the kid, looking for signs that he was conscious. He didn’t twitch when those who’d been holding him moved back rejoined their peers. Alistair approached Roy slowly, swaying with each step.

He crouched, face only inches from Roy.

“I can see it in your eyes. You want to know why, don’t you?” He asked airily, leaning in a little closer. “Go ahead. Ask why we’ve done this. Go on and preach about how rotten it is and just remember that you’re a _hypocrite_.”

“You’re not as smart as you think.” Roy hissed. “You left your evidence in the library.”

The older man’s head listed to one side, a sickly grin yanking at his face. His eyes crinkled, thinning with the sunny expression. “Oh, did we now?”

Roy was beyond livid, but he managed to keep himself from thrashing. It wouldn’t do him any good, but the at least he might be able to get one last blow in by way of shattering the illusion. They had only covered some of their tracks. There was just enough to figure out the details. He bit back a snarl, weakly trying to compose himself and push back the relentless waves of panic.

Don’t give them anything. Don’t fall for it. Don’t let them get to you.

_Don’t flinch._

“The Tellers died forty years ago. You were the one who survived.”

“Astute observation.”

“It wasn’t an accident.” Roy spat. Alistair’s face hardened and he pulled back. Good. _Throw him off_. “The town was dirt poor and I’m betting it was because of the crime rate that mysteriously dropped after your family was killed.”

The look of shock was the one silver lining in all of this. Roy would have preferred running the man through with a stake or bullet, but this was all he could do. He took cruel satisfaction in all of it. “So tell me, how old were you when you started executing petty criminals and bandits?”

For a moment it was quite and Alistair’s expression remained startled. Then he grinned. “Oh no, it’s far less complicated, Colonel. Not everything is a grand plan. We’re just looking for better luck and that’s all there is to it.”

“Like hell.” Roy barked. “You’ve all spent decades doing this. You can’t expect me to believe there’s no reason behind it.”

“But there _is_ a reason.” He replied softly, like he was chastising a child. “You’ve got to give life to get life. That’s what you alchemist believe too, isn’t it.”

His face gleamed while Roy felt unkind words building in his throat, the hands that held back his arms gradually becoming looser. “My family drowned. It’s as simple as that. Maybe they were pushed, maybe they fell in; it doesn’t matter. They were dead and all our food was rotting away. The fields were cursed and _dirty_.” The smile never stopped. It broaden with each word. “It took me a while to fish them out, but I buried them in the fields and would you like to know what I found?”

The alchemist glowered.

Alistair grinned, leaning in close to whisper. “The land gets a whole lot richer when there’s a body in it.”

The last piece feel into place. The earth tilted drunkenly.

They’d been using humans like fertilizer.

Roy felt sick.

Alistair stepped back, looking immensely proud and drinking in the sight before him smugly. His hands flared into a grand, sweeping gesture to their audience. “I know we don’t take kindly to getting our hands dirty.” He called over the congregation. “I know we usually let the land do that for us, but I don’t think our _volunteers_ would stay put.”

A lulling croon rumbled through the crowd, their feet shifting as though choreographed in a disturbed performance. The children held their parents hands and swung from side to side, smiling like fiends. They looked ready to mow down a prairie, a curious shine in their eyes that Roy remembered from when he was younger. It was the pulsing fascination of holding a magnifying glass atop insects, watching them burn. Morbid, gruesome excitement toiled, mumbling in their ears.

The adults shook their heads sadly, like this was some inevitable outcome. Their clothes were bundled into swaths, sewn with white and scarred with ink, the cloying liquid sketched up and down their hems in dripping splatters.

He looked to Ed, still sprawled out, his head turned to watch through slitted eyes, bright like the beams of a lighthouse cutting through the greyscale in a linen hurricane.

He caught the kid’s eyes, blinking through the watery mirages that had hooked his vision into a stuttering loop. It didn’t let up, but Roy forced himself to focus. His gaze met with Ed’s again, more solidly. There was exhaustion upon exhaustion upon terror.

The boy who'd walked through hell was scared.

A haunting hum started up, pouring outwards from the back of the townsfolk, carrying through his ears. Like the one on the phone, but wordless and chilling. The voices blended and split, coming undone in their harmonies. Someone approaching him, their eyes soft and unapologetic.

“Relax.” They told him kindly. “You’re doing a good thing.”

Their hand rested on his shoulder. Roy snarled, jerking away to no avail. They tutted, air puffing from their lips in the sweet manner teachers would use on unruly students.

“Just relax.” They repeated. Roy was livid and… _scared_. He was scared. As much as he wanted to believe there was a chance, there wasn’t. It couldn’t be ending—not like this, not here and now—but it was.

The person was faceless, their features mostly swallowed by the night, but the moonlight clawed across their teeth as they smiled, hand drawing back for a hit

“Don't worry. It's well, see? You’re going to the hills.”

The heel of their hand struck against a little pressure point just under his jaw. Roy blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm genuinely hoping y'all guessed this. Cause like... that means I Did My Job Right and planted enough clues. Twists are fun but Meticulously Planned Outcomes are my shit. There's extra codes in this chapter.  
> and an anagram.  
> Anyways! Hope this was enjoyable for y'all! We've got more stunning art this week as well!! [1](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/636244815074426880/a-shadow-passed-over-them-slow-and-malicious-in) [2](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/636312477758570496/a-cover-i-made-for-the-amazing-fic-blackwell) [3](https://side-blog-writes-stuff.tumblr.com/post/636354030991507456/i-like-the-sketch-version-more-so-im-posting)
> 
> 21-19-5 23-8-1-20 25-15-21 11-14-15-23


	14. Wolves and Ravens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Threats of violence. Descriptions of injuries. Near death experiences. Intrusive thoughts. Non-graphic violence. Phycological trauma.

Roy was barely awake when his eyes finally opened.

It was a disastrous and jarring sight. The first thing he saw were his own feet being dragged through dirt and grass, racking across stones like a scythe through wheat. It left a little trail of indents. There was a shield of white clothing surrounding him in a thick swath, only a small, waning ray of light spread upon them so he could see and a crooning hum filled his ears.

They were singing, deep, rumbling at the back of their throats. Roy tried to raise his head, but it dropped back down to his chest after only lifting an inch, cut down by a wave of sickness that made his stomach seize up. He could hardly see through the bleary haze, causing doubles and triples in his vision. They spiralled and merged and spiralled again. The motion made him nauseous.

There were hands grasping at his arms, yanking him along like he was a corpse rather than a person. It likely made no difference to them. Roy blinked and the scenery suddenly shifted. Had he blacked out again? His head felt light and feathery. 

The ground was rippling under him, like fabric or an ocean. His mouth was dry, movements sluggish. Roy blinked the haze from his vision

It was darker now. There were more people. Wait, no. That couldn't be right. Were those trees or people…? They were stark white against the darkness, reaching upwards, impossibly high. Trees, it must be. They’re far too tall to be human. But _they_ weren’t all that human at this point, were they? His head was spinning. There was a heavy pulse between his ears, behind his eyes, reverberating outwards.

The hands dropped him. Roy barely managed to catch himself before colliding with the ground, a hand braced on the muddy forest floor. When had it become a forest? Weren’t they in a field? 

“Oh, he’s still with us?” The same old, gentle voice from before—their hands were like battering rams—sang out. It was cracked and yellowed like the pages of long-outdated books. The sound made him tense. “Mind the hands, and all that. Don’t be letting him do anything until we’re finished.”

Roy was hopelessly out of it, but he managed to glare. “You won’t…” His voice hitched with a harsh cough.

The person grinned. “Won’t get away with this? Bah, that’s what everyone says. We’re still here. They’re all gone. It’s a good thing.” They waved.

Roy only half registered the sight of a fresh set of faces crouching down to look at him, smiles painted over their lips in a bloody fashion, arms intent on making sure he stayed put. They hooked their arms around his with grins.

The bright whites of long, linen clothes had turned to grey in the dark lighting. They hummed and chorused while those damned birds screeched in the background and Roy realized, to his unparalleled fucking horror, that the earth wasn’t simply swimming with the whims of his own ruined coherency. It wasn’t shifting because of dizziness or the aftermath of being unconscious. It was moving. It was rising and falling, breathing in deep gasps, gurgling for air, thunderously soft and _god he could hear it too_.

The wheezing, bubbling rushes that came when the dirt sank, only to be filled up again moments later. The inhales were guttural and chest-splitting. Were those trees at all? Teeth, perhaps?

Roy felt the dirt lift under him again and his stomach twisted, heart dropping as a horribly distinct scent hit him square in the face. The bitter, relentless, rolling breath of tar almost knocked him over. Roy choked on the taste, wishing he could at least move enough to spit it out. His living restraints wouldn’t allow it. Their grips were light but impossibly firm. They might as well be made of metal or stone.

The earth rolled in a deep heave. It felt like this place was alive. It _was_ alive and breathing and he was its next meal.

He and Ed.

 _Ed_.

There was a small surge of energy, just enough for his head to jerk up, eyes wild and unadulterated in their panic. The shuffling of feet and mumbling of voices were overpowering, but he was still here. He had to be. They wouldn’t have just… _no_. Not after all that.

They were following their twisted tradition and that meant Ed was here somewhere, pinned down and probably in shock. He was here. But that was worse, wasn’t it. Because they were still going to die.

How long does it take to drown in something like tar? It would be endless and suffocating. The liquid was dense and slow to chew. It was heavy as well. Maybe it would cave in their ribs and squeeze their air out of them. The waves of oily sourness was enough to make Roy shudder inwardly and _where’s Ed he has to be here._

He would never say it because it was unforgivably selfish but he didn't want to be alone. After everything, he _couldn't_ be alone.

Roy blinked hard. The two keeping him pinned didn’t seem to be paying him any mind, instead their attention was focused on a long line of people. They were marching along, kneeling down and pressing their palms against the ground. They came back inked in black and glistening. Parents lifted their children to plant their hands on the pale bark wrapping around the base of each tree, leaving smeared, messy prints along them. They sang and buzzed about, kids chattering in hushed whispers, giggling like this was a game.

_The games._

Finally the line of people parted, splitting in a jagged way and he caught a flash of sharp gold among the grey and white. People were stepping over and around him like he was just a fallen branch or a lump on the ground, but the bright flash was unmistakable.

Ed had been simply dropped on the ground, unmoving but awake and, to Roy’s shock, coherent. His eyes were wide open, glaring in a slash through the crowd, pounded with terror and rage, coated in his stubborn intelligence that neither injury nor god could rob the boy of. And there was that _spark_.

The relentless skirting of flash-bangs and gunpowder that lived in Ed’s skin and blazed into his face, even now. Because of _fucking course_ it did. Roy felt like slapping himself. How dare he think the most defiant being in the world had given up. How dare he even _insinuate_ it.

Ed's gaze locked onto his, eyes narrowing.

The communication was flimsy at best, done in small gestures and careful nods as to not be noticed, but at least they weren’t dead yet. Close to it, absolutely. But… maybe, by some absurd miracle, they could slip out. Slim chances lived in their blood like a lucky parasite and he hoped it would stick around long enough to keep them breathing.

_That’s how it works._

Roy remained trained on the younger alchemist, watching his fingers slowly draw something out, buried in the little wisps of grass that managed to survive so close to the thick black sludge. The children were skipping about, becoming frenzied and joyous. He ignored them as best he could, even as they blocked his line of sight and cartwheeled dangerously close to where the earth sloped into a pool of ink. Between the flurries of movement, Ed mouthed something so quickly Roy almost didn’t see it. 

_Don't breathe._

The lines split apart, creating a wide ring for people to stroll leisurely, each stride rehearsed and perfect. They walked single file, leaning in time with the mumbled cajoling, intoned to one another in concert, their feet moving in an almost patterned way. They’d done this before. 

In near perfect tandem, they droned on without a single lyric. 

“We’ll need a way to keep them from getting out.” Someone whispered through the fray. Roy’s eyes never strayed from the younger alchemist.

“Yes, yes. A good cut would do. People get all screwy when they don’t have enough blood in ‘em.” A voice cackled.

“We can’t _waste_ them though. Through the neck would be best.”

Ed repeated the phrase.

 _Don’t breathe_.

Which was an incredibly cryptic thing to say, even if he didn’t actually speak the words. They were a hairline fracture away from being sent to the equivalent of Blackwell’s gallows, either left to drown in a sinkhole or simply having their necks cut first.

Both.

It was going to be both. Their blood would mix with the inky nothingness of pitch and soil until they were pale faced and slack jawed. Fast or slow, it didn't matter because this would surely kill them either way. 

But he had just enough faith that whatever Ed was about to try wouldn’t end in disaster. Roy didn't have any other choice but to trust and hope. There was nothing else he could do.

Roy held his breath and waited.

Even as people surged forward and his eyes snapped shut, letting his arms go slack and loosening the knots that had built up between his shoulders. Hands—sticky little things, he realized—curled across his wrists and started tugging him forward, straining against the limbs that held him down.

Roy held his breath as the pale fabric encompassed his vision, swarming over Ed and intent on hauling them off somewhere. No, not somewhere. _Forward_. They were tugging him closer to the monstrous black pit of tar. They were all kids, snickering and hissing to one another until the two keeping Roy’s hands behind his back shooed them away. They scattered with a burst of laughter.

His lungs started to burn, nudging him to throw caution to the wind and maybe just try to brawl his way out, as stupid as it would be.

A violent side of his person grew loud in its urging, convincing him it would be best to make quick work of everyone.

Roy held his breath as it pleaded and cajoled, parroting how his gloves would’ve been able to turn everyone here to a seared puddle of flesh, evaporated fat and screaming lips. It wouldn’t even be hard to make them boil from the inside out, their veins breaking through their skin and scorching across their eyelids. 

Roy could take his time or create a mighty bonfire with a snap, had his gloves not been blown apart by a lucky buckshot. 

He held his breath. 

* * *

Ed stayed still.

It took ever ounce of will and strength in him to not jerk back when dozens of people began to approach, intent on dragging him down into a suffocating, black grave. He made himself wait until their feet stood inches from his nose, hovering right over his body unbeknownst to the fact that he was fully awake and every piston firing. His lips were pressed together tightly, nose shut down from the inside and lungs entirely stagnant. The ground beneath him shifted. It breathed, begging him to do the same. Ed glowered and bit his tongue. If he had the luxury of speaking he would have snarled out something rather crude. He didn't, though.

Someone had taken the rope he’d kept stowed away in his pocket, tossing it through the crowd and handed off to before he’d been able to see who'd taken it. The townsfolk were babbling to each other, not caring if he heard.

They thought he was out of it. Bleary from having his arm pulled off, perhaps in shock or something worse. _Hah_. No, no, no. Nothing be farther from the truth.

He was entirely aware of what was going on and thoroughly filled with spite. Ed was being fuelled by the bitter, stinging feeling.

They didn’t even realize it, but he was fuming and rearing to go. He hadn’t felt this awake and painless in days. They were idiots and all he had to do was hold his breath.

“A hacksaw?”

“No, no. That would be too messy.” Voices skirted just beyond his line of sight, exchanging their morbid ideas on how to dispose of the two. Ed had to keep himself from wincing at their suggestions.

“We shouldn’t use bullets either.” Someone mumbled. “That’ll scare the birds away.”

“Bad luck.” Another agreed.

He’d already activated the circle, coaxing up a barrage of breathable knockout pills and emptying his own reserves. It glowed mutely beneath his hand, hidden under his palm in case any of them had sharper eyes than he expected. The gas was already swelling upwards in a rolling wave, he could feel it stinging against his face and nose, teasing at the burn on his arm and cheek almost acidically. The effort was draining him rapidly, sapping the remaining strength so he could draw the right materials to the surface.

It was like trying to deadlift a bull. _Without breathing._

But at least the townsfolk didn’t know; at least they thought he was still glassy with shock.

Jokes on them.

_Fuckin’ lizard arm trick. Thank god for Winry._

It saved him the debilitating pain of someone tearing the nerves apart and allowed his wits to stay firmly in place, reeling and skipping beyond measures most would even begin to understand. It took apart elements and ripped up the ground below, taking in all the oxidizing bacteria and wealth of iodine steeped into this mass grave of a valley. They had no idea they were sleeping on a goldmine catered to his exact needs in this moment. They’d been fertilizing the soil, after all. _It must be chalked full of ether_

A rough, age marred and thoroughly weathered voice tutted. “A knife is easiest. For livestock and whatnot.”

Ed’s blood boiled.

 _Fucking livestock_.

Across from him, buried behind the constantly stifling and marching feet of the townspeople, he could just make out the Colonel, his eyes screwed shut and head bowed. Thankfully, he’d caught on and was holding in a mouthful of air.

“It’ll be a knife, I suppose. Across the throat, yeah?” A younger person asked. Ed had to fight to not go rigid. He saw them turning to one another, searching for a blade to use and Ed repressed another shudder. He kept his lips welded shut and his eyes vacant. It fooled them well enough but the combination of his floundering lungs and panicked surge at the sight of a dagger made the facade thinner. They approached Ed, slow and calm, the congregation parting just enough that he could see a hand wielding a box cutter, turning the thing over in their hand as they drew to a halt beside Mustang.

“That’s the fastest way.”

Ed only caught a metallic flash before a startlingly gentle hand carded through his hair. He came close to shivering at the contact, with how kind and light it started off as. The hand tightened, raising his head from the dirt and smoothly letting the blade's edge touch his neck. It grazed against his skin. Ed fought back the urge to swallow. 

“You'd better not go squirming, kid.” Someone grinned into his ear. He stayed still.

“Don’t bother. He can’t hear you.”

The blade tightened against his skin. He blinked, eyes bleary and vision tilting. A dark fog was creeping in at the edges. Ed hoped he wouldn’t black out before the townsfolk did, but it was an uphill battle. At least he had a lot of pent up frustration to help him power through the burning feeling in his chest.

The knife was razor sharp, raising up every hair on his body with a wave of hot pins and needles. It rested against his jugular and Ed wanted to breathe. He wanted to scream or punch someone but he stayed still as the metal skimmed across his throat.

His heart pounded.

 _Please work_. 

It slid aimlessly against his flesh, his hair prickling and the chill migrating down into the pit of his stomach where it bloomed into stabbing, blood-built icicles. By some miracle, the languid shifting didn’t draw blood, but it sent terror skipping down his back.

And then, they started to sing, elevated from hums and whispers to a cry. It was the same melody as before, thick and slow like honey, sickly sweet as well. Ed started to feel his hand grow numb from the lack of oxygen, his jaw locked in place. His eyes watered and again, the ground expanded below him. It was breathing and he needed to breathe too, but he couldn’t. Ed waited, fighting every nerve and instinct as they went haywire, pleading with him that it wasn’t worth it just as people began to stumble, falling to their knees and tripping sideways. 

Ether was a hell of a thing, wasn’t it?

It was a shame he never did figure out a way to siphon it up from the ground without draining himself to the brink of unconsciousness but his other options were decidedly non-existent. There was still a few other version go this array stowed away in his notes, back in the hotel room he never got a chance to return to. It was overly complex and exhaustive, but it was _working_.

All Ed needed to do was not inhale any of it until he could catapult himself and Mustang out of the area he’d so kindly doused in, essentially, sleeping gas. 

The rhythm of the crowd didn’t let up, but it hitched. The cool metal against his skin started to tremble and he could only hope they wouldn’t accidentally slit his jugular open on the way down. His gaze darted frantically to Mustang. The man's head was still low with the knife carelessly pressed just above his collar. His eyes were open, casting an unguarded and, frankly, panicked look to the younger. 

Ed shut his eyes and waited.

His chest seized and sputtered, caving inwards as his body ate up the last of the air he’d held in. Within moments it started to beg him to breathe. It was a primal, vicious feeling. The effort to hold back was insultingly monumental, but it started to pay off almost a minute into the flow of noxious gas.

The faces most aged by time tumbled first, setting off a chain reaction of youth rounded children soon after.

The townspeople began _dropping_ , their eyes glazed and faces blank. Ed struggled to push himself upright, looking around wildly for the only other sane person within reach. Mustang was a step ahead, racing forward with his nose jammed in the crook of his elbow, hauling Ed to his feet and running carelessly across the smattering of felled bodies, sprinting away from the tar pits. The townspeople were alive, of course, but drifting through static filled dreams. 

The older alchemist dropped any pretences of letting Ed hold onto his pride, choosing instead to half-carry the younger to the edge of the light, barely visible cloud. It was like a mockery of a three legged race, stumbling and uncoordinated and frantic.

They were both running out of stamina when they made it to the edge of the fog, dropping to their knees and almost synchronously scrawling out a circle. It was actually kind of impressive how they managed to spit the array out near seamlessly without so much as a word, but he didn’t have much time to appreciate their combined efforts.

Ed’s jaw twitched, itching to open and keep the dark tunnelling spots in his vision at bay.

_Just another second._

An earthen dome sprouted from the ground, curling around the white-clad people and slamming shut with a thunderous clap. He stopped powering the gas. They weren't dead.

Fucking hell.

Ed fell back, gasping and coughing on the frigid air. He wished he could claim it tasted sweet with victory or some proverbial lullaby like that, but in truth it just stung and made him shiver. It tasted like acid and smoke. Mustang was no better, one hand braced under him to keep from face planting, sucking in air in rapid pants.

“ _Holy shit_.” Ed managed to say between intakes, shaking with disbelief. “I can’t…” His eyes fell shut, chest still heaving. “…believe that worked…”

“Shut up.” Mustang breathed back.

Ed choked on a laugh, the sound strangled and airy. Because, really, _wow_. That had no right to go as well as it did. None whatsoever. Not that he was complaining. He was still alive, after all, and Mustang was still there, annoyingly real with a beating heart.

And talking.

_Stop it. Don’t think about that._

There was a thin line sketched across the Colonel’s neck, stippled with blood and leaving splotches across his collar. It was only a shallow slash, barely enough to warrant bandages. Ed coughed, the night air sticking to the walls of his chest. His lungs felt like they were full of rocks, his throat dry and head pounding with dizziness, but Ed heaved out another laugh, grinning to himself despite all the hurt and terror.

The birds atop the wall still warbled in the distance, shrieking in turns and showing no signs of stopping. Fuck it. Good for them. Ed couldn't care less because it _worked_ and they weren't dead.

He wanted to get up and shout as violently as possible. Whether it be to gloat or just yell really, really loudly, Ed wasn’t entirely sure. But for the first time in days, he felt triumphant and _whole_. Ed decided to focus instead on relearning the fine art of exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide and not biting his own tongue off from his senseless, pained, gasped out laughs.

He heard a heavy thump, turning to find that Mustang had joined him on the ground, sprawled on his back a few feet away and looking like he’d run a marathon. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

They lay there for a long while, catching their breath and honestly just trying not to throw up from all the swirling mixes of older wounds and the overwhelming relief of both still being kicking. He was still acutely aware of the crabgrass slicing through the skin of his wrist, leaving pinstripes across the blisters on his arm and sending prickles across his back.

The adrenaline started to wear off and his foot sweetly reminded him why you’re not supposed to walk on a limb that’s been twisted halfway north and then set back: it _fucking hurt_. He didn't dare move.

Eventually, Mustang peel his exhausted, exasperated self off the dirt and started taking inventory while Ed was quite content where he lay.

“You okay?” The older man asked, casting a sidelong glance filled to the brim with trepidation.

“Define _okay_.”

He sighed. “Okay enough to be a pain in the ass.” 

“Hah, yeah. Dead or alive.” Ed flashed a weak smile, accepting the proffered hand. Mustang must’ve forgotten that automail equals extra weight because he _very_ much overestimated in pulling Ed to his feet, almost throwing him. The blond winced, righting himself and shamelessly using Mustang to balance, leaning against his shoulder. “Kindly refrain from yanking the other arm off. It’s not a two for one deal.” 

Mustang didn’t seem to mind being a human cane all that much. He just raised an eyebrow, looking incredulous. The blond took an experimental, limping step and found that, previously, there had been a lot more energy in his system than he realized.

That little stunt with the transmutation took up whatever he had left. Ed was lucky that he was able to stand at all.

Even without the mind numbing pain of having his automail slashed off, detachment could still knock him flat on his back for a day at a time, and without the handy dandy little adrenaline shooters at his beckon call, there was pretty much nothing keeping him from keeling over and taking a dirt nap. He was running on _less_ than empty.

Ed’s leg buckled under the pressure. Mustang caught him before he could make good on the _dirt nap_ thing, thankfully.

“I stand corrected. You really can't lie for shit.” He ducked under Ed’s arm, a hand around his middle so he didn’t spontaneously topple. “Hey, you still awake?”

“Yeah. That just took a lot outta me.” Ed straightened, feeling a dull wave of _ow ow ow_ washing outwards from his shoulder. 

“No kidding. Nitrous oxide or ether?”

“Ether. Lasts longer.”

Mustang frowned, glaring harshly. “That could’ve gone really badly, you know.”

“It didn’t though.”

“And your arm?”

“New trick.”

“For _fuck’s sake_ , Fullmetal.”

Ed didn’t know if it was because of proximity, or just the slightly _off_ note in Mustang’s voice, or the fact that he seemed so adamant about using the stupid, terrible title, but he flinched.

_Again._

Something he was getting really sick of because it was just so senseless. Even after he pushed it back, the panicked motion returned without pathos. How many times did he had to re-evaluate and reassure himself that the Colonel was on his side? 

Too many times, apparently. It was just… _something_ about the tone that made him feel really, really alone again. It was a little bit too dim, part of his paranoid mind noted. There was the split second panic that urged him to drive a fist into the older man’s jaw, saying how it was just dark enough that his face was blurred and hazy.

_Do you really think a soldier wouldn’t kill—_

Mustang was his only ally here, and there Ed was, skittish as though the older was capable of being anything other than irritating. It was fine. He was fine. Nothing happened.

“It could’ve rebounded.” The Colonel said. Ed didn’t respond, he just glanced to the soil-built dome and wondered how long it would last for. Mustang’s eyes zeroed in on him further, scrutinizing and critical. The, he looked away, shaking his head with a biting huff. "High risk, high reward." 

The birds kept cawing, giving Ed the perfect excuse for wincing at the words. He pivoted the subject. “What now?”

He didn’t really have an answer other than luck. It had been a gamble to pour so much of his energy into a single blow, but with the gravity of the situation holding him hostage and the promise of being split apart lurking nearby, Ed had rolled the dice. Mustang hadn't really been _wrong_. No risk no reward, but this had been one _hell_ of a risk.

Mustang shifted his weight as they looked out over the midnight sky, bleached by the moon and filled with ghostly flickers. “Your arm is still MIA.” The Colonel reminded.

Ed shivered. “Forget that. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He jerked his head towards the direction of the wall where it dipped between the hills. The older man resigned, but refused to fully let go of the blond. They walked in an odd rhythm, but Mustang didn’t comment. He just… wordlessly let Ed stagger, using his stability like a crutch and ready to right him when he overcorrected.

“They’re gonna catch up.” Mustang said.

“At least _one_ of us can run off in that case.” Ed shrugged. “Probably you cause, you know, busted foot.”

He felt Mustang tense, a mighty argument swelling that Ed really didn’t have the patience or fortitude for. “I’m not just going to leave.” He started.

“I know you’re not, you paranoid weirdo. I’m just saying—“ He made a vague gesture. “—statistically, you’ve got a better chance at not dying in a worst case scenario.”

“What damn statistics are you using?” He demanded indigently.

Ed shot him an unimpressed look. “The ones that say my leg is totalled.” He wanted to sleep so damn bad it was painful. His head hung with a heavy sigh.

“Worst case scenario I’m still not going to just ditch—Fullmetal?”

The name made him freeze for a moment. A long moment. Ed forced himself to relax.

“I’m fine.” He assured. “Just tired from almost dying and whatnot.”

“Fair enough.”

Ed swallowed back the persistent taste of bile that had taken up residence at the back of his throat. Without permission, by the by. “You… should probably take those other two matches.” He suggested quietly.

Mustang didn’t even take a moment to consider. He didn’t even pretend to. “Don’t be ridiculous,” He responded, “you’d have a harder time keeping a fire lit than me.”

* * *

Ed was jumping when he spoke. He wasn't even covering it up now, shying away and shrinking back at every other word. He flinched when Roy said _Fullmetal_. Rather hard, actually.

Roy had no idea why.

He supposed it could just be from the general, overall panic of coming within a hair's breadth of being dragged off by an occult-stained town. Yes, that was easily plausible and something he would’ve accepted without so much as blinking, had this not already been happening. Ed had been doing this since they'd run into one another, but he decided to keep his mouth shut.

Roy kept up a conversation, feeble though it was as they hiked towards the wall, coming just short of outright demanding Ed reply for the sake of making sure he didn’t slip into the grasp of sleep. 

Ed’s stride took a long pause. Roy retracted his previous internal statement. “C’mon, talk to me. You’re not allowed to pass out yet.”

“Those two are still out there.” Ed muttered. "The Tellers. I saw them go off when they knocked you out."

Roy kept his focus on his footing, trying to compensate for the extra weight with smaller, more squared steps. “Which is why you’ve got to stay conscious.”

“Like it’s easy…”

“It _is_ easy.” The older man huffed. “All you’ve got to do is keep your eyes open.”

“Oh relax. I’m not just gonna collapse.”

“Could’ve fooled me. Say, what do you suppose the wall is made of?”

Ed grumbled, shooting Roy a wicked glare. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Brilliant deduction.” He said casually. “I’m guessing limestone.”

“Colonel,” Ed started. 

Roy kept right on talking. If he gave Ed the space to protest then this was going to become exponentially more difficult to justify. As is, he has the luxury of claiming the guise of efficiency—if Ed slipped to the whims of incoherency, getting away would be a lot harder. 

But Roy was being rather selfish, in truth. He simply didn’t want to be on his own right now, as he tended to be. If the Tellers did manage to chase them down, Ed was pretty much the only thing that would keep him from flying off the deep end. He was so close to snapping at this point because it was all so much and just drawing some blood was easy. The cries of whatever devils were perched in the distance only redoubled the threat of mania.

Ed was an anchor, in a way, so Roy would stubbornly return the favour, even where it’s not wanted. “Not sure how old it is though—“

Ed tried again. “ _Colonel_ ,”

Roy took a long pause. “Humour me.” He finally said. It felt like throwing a dart from the clouds, with everything working against him. The lack of light, Ed’s exhaustion, even his own body betraying him by way of letting his heart rest firmly on his sleeve. All of it pushed back against the _juvenile_ desperation to not completely lose his mind before the sun broke the sky. 

He’d been inching closer and closer through the night. The cloying little voice in his head was proof enough, wrapping itself around his thoughts and steering them towards the more grisly possible solution simply for the sake of doing so. All of it were things he could do. _Already has done._

Despite all the fail safes and proverbial guards like logic and protectiveness he’d put in place, the possibility of simply being left in a mental free fall scared him.

Just a little.

The response was slow, but hit with the force of a sledgehammer on glass, breaking the tension in an easy swoop. “Not limestone, I'd say.” Ed replied with a dull look, gazing out towards their destination.

“Yeah?”

“There’s no lakes nearby.” The younger alchemist explained. “They would’ve had to import all of it…" He inhaled carefully. "And someone would have needed to assemble it too.”

That made enough sense: such an intensely private place wouldn’t take all that well to strangers poking about the county. Unless they’d all been sunk to the bottom of the earth too. Roy mentally smacked himself, shooing the thought away in favour of the mundane discussion.

About rocks.

Because why not.

“Something local.” Roy mused.

Ed nodded. “Above average calcium, cause of all the peat.”

“And lower iron.”

“Could be sedimentary.”

“Definitely.” The older agreed. “It’s not like there’s any volcanic action to get something igneous.”

Ed’s expression soured into an exasperated frown. “It’s fucking fieldstone, isn’t it.”

Like throwing a dart from the clouds.

They traded comments back and forth like volleys on a court, not keeping score as they normally might and placing more emphasis on falsifying a sense of calm. It helped to a degree. There was still the continuing worry—that Ed was certainly not helping tamp down with his reminders, by the by—that Alistair and his son, according to Ed, would come barreling through their path in a moments notice reared its head whenever the wind picked up.

He had to convince himself that it was stemming from paranoia. An occasional glance over his shoulder informed that the dome was still standing, and there were no phantom images of people drifting through the grass drenched in pale dresses. Anxiety was relentless, saying that, though harrowing and a decidedly close call, that had been _too_ easy.

There was something else waiting in the wings that they simply hadn’t crossed paths with yet and it made his throat chest grow tight.

“Feels like the end of a ghost story.” Ed nodded to the barricade. “Like something is gonna pop out at the last second, you know?”

“Yeah.”

For the longest moment, neither said anything. They trudged onwards, weary and both ready to take a moment of rest at the first opportunity. There were traces of mist curling across the grass, teasing the grass and stirring up into little gales here and there.

Without warning, Ed stopped.

Roy stiffened alongside him. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you see that or am I hallucinating?”

“Where?”

His arm lifted, pointing to a small crevice where the blueish-grey stone was shadowed over by it’s own folds. “I swear I just saw something—“

A sharp flick cut off whatever Ed was going to say and something yanked them apart, pulled in opposite directions. Roy hit the ground hard and didn’t even have time to have the wind knocked out of him before the thing pulled _again_ , towing him backwards in quick jolts. 

Something had wrapped around his wrist, done into a tight knot at the base and nearly dislocating his hand from the rest of his arm with the force. It wrenched him back a final time, driving stone across his side and shoulders, leaving scrapes up the back of his arms.

He heard Ed call out from somewhere close by. “Colonel! You alright?” Roy felt lumbering footsteps vibrate through the ground. “Can you hear me?”

His hands clawed at the ground, trying to catch his breath while the pounding got closer until a dark, too tall, too broad frame hovered over him, fists clasped together and raised over their head. They spoke again. It sounded like Ed. “Colonel?" And swung down.

Roy ducked, barely managing to roll out of the way. The blow still sent his mind into overdrive. It was too dark to fully see, but it was obvious who he was against.

Perhaps Ed had jinxed it and the world was having the time of its life laughing at them.

Roy shouldn’t even be surprised at this point. They were operating within the worst of natures rules: whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Of course the people who can mimic voices managed to separate them in the dark. Like the end of a ghost story. One last hoorah for the masses. The little threat keeping him in reality was splintered and fraying.

He couldn’t see where Ed might’ve been dragged off to, but certainly had his work cut out for him. Roy dodged another wide swing from the looming figure before him.

* * *

Having a literal noose around your neck sucked. Which probably went without saying, but still. _Ow._

Ed should’ve known better, really. Marcel had outright told him when he walked into town. How much had they given away right off the bat? How much had gone right over his head?

_The walls are made special._

The prick had conveniently forgotten to mention that they were _hollow_. They were easily wide enough to accommodate people. Ed was willing to bet his… okay, he didn’t have much to bet, but the wall was probably connected to the aqueducts.

It was a terribly fitting explanation for how no one had ever spread the word of a town of casual bloodletters that rested in the east. Someone, statistically, should have escaped through those forty years if they’d simply been leaving the dirty work to the tar pits, but no. There hadn’t been a peep and Teller had been right, earlier when he’d spoken as though this all made perfect sense.

They hadn’t even noticed when their own people were going missing.

These walls weren’t designed to keep wild animals out as he'd been told, they were designed to keep people _in_. Blackwell Spring’s legacy as the town no one left took on something far worse and gruesome.

It wasn’t that no one left, just that no one had escaped.

Ed, in the low light, could spot the cracks along the wall. There were niches lining the stone, big enough for the nose of a rifle to poke out and spit metal until the target was pumped with lead. The flicker he’d seen wasn’t just a trick of the light, or the odd reflections of malformed stone, it was a goddamn door. It was still open and presumably where he’d be heading if he didn’t get himself together soon and _god breathing isn’t supposed to be this damn hard—_

Ed fought for a sliver of a handhold, still fazed by the shock of it all but certainly not ready to go down without causing as much grief as he could. Which was hard because he couldn’t breathe and there was a _thing_ strangling him.

Teller had said it himself: they don’t leave home without a stupid _lasso._

One that was currently still suffocating him.

Right. Priorities.

Get this thing off _now_.

Ed heard the beginnings of a fight soon after Mustang had gotten pulled away, but whoever had the pleasure of hauling Ed himself off didn’t let up, drawing him closer and closer to the wall. They must’ve been running, or at least marching with the fortitude of a horse, never giving Ed a chance to even gasp in a mouthful of the atmosphere.

A length of thick rope making him choke for air (seriously, a _lasso_ ) before he finally was able to wring his fingers between his skin and the noose. It bent his knuckles back in a way that looked anatomically incorrect before he slipped out. Logic and every instinct that was left in his body cried at him to get up and run, but he was too busy coughing up his stomach lining to listen.

His eyes were watery, every breath rendered to a gasp

 _God_ , that was going to leave a bruise. Talking was going to hurt for a week straight.

If Ed could survive this, that is. 

“ _Fullmetal_.”

He felt terror before anything else. Pure terror and nothing else. _Not again._

_Not again. I fucking refuse—_

Ed rolled out of the way before a foot stamped down on his shoulder. A lean, scraggily figure stalked forward, rope swinging in their grasp. “Calm down, Fullmetal.” 

To his credit, Marcel had improved the impression. To Ed’s absolute devastation and dismay, it made him freeze.

“What’s wrong? You look—“ Ed’s heart lurched. “— _tired_.”

The man approached, lazy in his stroll and treating the whole thing like it was a game.

_You have to move._

Everything locked in place, the squabbling from above fading into a dull growl while Ed clawed for purchase over the ground, whether it be a stone to hurl forwards or a corner he could use to carry himself back. 

_You have to move._

Marcel gave him a flat, unimpressed look, the light blaring across the field from midnight reflections casting dark gouges across his face; he looked ghoulish and skeletal. The rope threaded across his forearm, looped around his elbow with a sharp _snap_. There’d been an off kilter, uncanny sort of friendliness to his expression before, something buried in the language of his motions that, even in the act of something horrible, somehow smelled fainted of altruism. 

_You have to—_

He didn’t even think about it. Not really. It was reactive and reckless. Ed’s metal leg swung out in a fast, wicked arc, clipping Marcel above the ankles and knocking his feet off the ground. 

As much satisfaction as Ed might’ve gotten from the pained grunt that followed, he instead opted to scramble up and take off running, adrenaline blurring the line between real and phantom pain. He caught sight of a towering figure take aim, two silhouettes darting back and forth. A snakelike grasp latched onto his foot within seconds and traded the ground for open and, then a mouthful of dirt.

Again, it drew him back, like a piece of metal forcefully pulled towards a magnate. “Come now,” He was still doing the thing with his voice and it made the younger want to squirm.

_Not again. I won't let him._

Ed wanted to hide himself away whoever he possibly could, but nope. Not happening. There's no time for that now. 

Ed’s nails almost broke at the force which he jammed them into the ground, jolting to a stop. He hurried to re-angle himself, grabbing hold of the twisted up leather cord and planting both feet into the ground. He leaned against the surprising force with all his weight, his heels digging shallow divots into the ground. Rope burn carved new callouses across his palm, his grip slipping a little every now and again. Ed did all he could to remain steadfast, waiting and listening for some type of opening.

The bones in his ankle were threatening to shift. He risked taking some of the weight off and his balance skewed a little. Ed could make out the sound of a heavy fist and someone taking a pretty bad fall. Based off of the sound and the cry that had come with it, he could guess who’d landed the lucky blow and grimaced inwardly. If he could just… if he could just get to the Colonel, it would be fine.

_Do you really think a soldier wouldn’t kill—_

_Stop. Just stop. There no time for that. Focus._

Ed still has the matches. All he’d have to do is cover Mustang long enough for him to scribble out a circle and they could incapacitate their attackers. It was easy. The distance was only a hundred or so yards. A quick dash at worst.

He could make that.

All he had to do was daze Marcel long enough to make a break for it. Ed could almost feel the tension sputter on the other end of the rope, a quiver running through it like words through a telephone wire and making Ed’s arm buzz, right up to his shoulder and through his chest. 

“Damn you.” The impression started to crack and crumble and the older man strained. 

Ed’s leg started to throb, the bone threatening to snap out of place even as he only used it to stay upright. The only thing keeping the fractures from sliding forward and tearing through his skin was the splint. He’d have to give Mustang a proper thanks for that later, saving him from the inevitable nerve damage and all.

If not that, then at least giving him a little more durability. It didn’t stop his head from swimming, the ground below rolling as though it was alive. Alive like the tar pits, inhaling, exhaling, whispering in dull grumbled with white teeth and picked-clean ribs sticking upwards and those birds were still screaming.

_Focus!_

He felt a sharp, wrenching heave and the opportunity presented itself beautifully.

Normally Ed would be a touch more calculating. He wasn’t directionless, but his ideas tended to take hard left turns down bumpy roads. Ultimately he’d get where he needed to go, but this was really just a wild swing for the fences. There was hope and boldness and plenty of anger. Fear eclipsed it all.

He’d cross his fingers if he could. 

Marcel gave a mighty heave and Ed used the force like a reverse springboard, skipping forward a step and oh so smoothly ramming his metal knee just below the man’s diaphragm, hearing the distinctly brutal cracking of his ribs and feeling horribly pleased with the way the man folded, crumpling and howling to himself.

It was still too dark, the wisps of fog that had settled across the field turning everything into a swirl of vague shapes, like a watercolour landscape that had been washed over with too many layers and grew muddled.

Ed could hear them, the exchanging of blows and occasionally shout. The ever present feeling of being utterly drained had the decision making part of his brain buffering and the rest of him itching to move. Ed saluted his claims to strategy, waving them goodbye and drew in a deep breath.

“Colonel!” He shouted.

The sound bounded forwards and back, knocking against the stone hedge and making him flinch at the piercing echo.

Two voices called back, the exact same brand of horrified and frantic, right down to the why the vowels trembles and it made his mouth go dry.

“ _Help._ ” One cried.

“ _Stay out._ ” The other yelled.

Ed took a few halting steps forward, staring through the mist and watching the spectral flashes of dark spots flare up into overlarge waves of motion. He tried to follow them, tracking the reverberating thudding from footsteps of his own heart, desperate to separate them but it was impossible. The noises tangled into a crescendo and made his ears pop.

Ed called out again, his crumpled into a fist with rolling clouds of unease swallowing him up to his knees. 

“Mustang!”

The fog dissipated and thickened, pulsing in and out of existence as though it was a lively phantom. The motions were serpentine and sporadic. It was nauseating to try and look through it all. Twin tones shouted back at him.

“— _don’t_ —“

“— _leave_ —“

 _Damn it_. Ed staggered, panic and anger climbing their way towards a free fall, ready and willing to let him crash into his own headstone if only to stop the crippling uncertainty.

Damn it. Damn it times a million and a half. To heaven, to hell, to Central or even Resembool, _damn it_.

_Be rational. If you rush in to help…_

_You could die._

_If you stay put and wait for the dust to clear…_

_You could die._

It felt like he was breathing in pure fumes.

It’s unbelievably tired to illustrate the horrid majesty of terror on the wings of a water metaphor but the panic of it all landed a right cross to his being with the combined mass and power of a thousand imploding seas. 

Ed stood still, straining to hear and see whilst his nasty, cruelly cynical voice of reason listed each and every way things could go wrong. They could be screwed either way and there was no discernible way to tell the two apart.

As pointless as that small, unchangeable detail was, it still sparked up a whole host of anger that prickled and crawled under his skin. A colony of fire ants chewing their way through his nerves, flooding his veins and stirring up some pretty tactless internal comments. 

_Think. There’s got to be some loophole; some way through this._

And the voices came again. “ _Fullmetal!”_

He flinched.

Doesn’t matter. They already knew his title. He’d handed that information over on a silver platter. 

The other voice chased after, a single word practically knocking Ed upside the head. “Limestone.”

Ed ran.

Mustang—the real one, not some cheap impressionist—kept listing off the thing they’d briefly theorized. The iron, calcium, fieldstone, and everything in between.

It baffled Teller into silence for a good few moments and let Ed fall into a downhill sprint. The ground sloped enough that he felt heavy, writhing jolts buzz right through his foot, shaking his stance. He stumbled, only catching himself through the graces of a terribly timed grimace. 

Mustang didn’t let up, yelling out anything and everything that could act as proof for Ed in the dark. The blond shouted back one of his own and hoped to any merciful deity that Mustang’s head was still screwed on right and not leaking intelligence across the soil. 

“ _Oxygen_ ,”

He kept trekking onwards, feeling the sharp reminders of his broken limb as he pulled the box of matches from his pocket, thankfully still intact and holding two precious sticks. The shadows pulled closer and closer into focus. There was one hunched over, the other a good few yards away and seeming to be recovering from a decently hard blow. Startlingly quick, at that. The boorish figure took wide lumbering steps forward.

Ed stuck a match between his teeth, the motion almost feeling practiced, and dove forward.

A haphazard roll kept him from crashing, the box held in his hand. Mustang’s palm was already planted at the base of a crudely draw circle. Teller pitched forward with a growl.

Ed slashed the match across the checkered edge, hearing the airy hiss of sulfur sparking against sawdust.

But the spark was struck a second too late. The miniature explosion blazed to life. A much too large hand wrapped around Ed’s wrist and nearly tore his arm from its socket, pulling him across the fiery threshold before it could cut the two alchemists off from Teller.

Ed had just enough of his mind about him to look through the dividing flare of heat and find a familiar pair of wide eyes and shout, “Catch!”

He knew the Colonel would. How could he not? Ed would never left him live it down.

_That’s how it works._

He threw the match box just as Teller flung him down.

The dirt was hard packed and made no welcome greetings when Ed collided with it. The world sputtered to a stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Knocking out the POV character to end the chapter twice? I... have no excuse. It's just that there was no other place to cut. Maybe I should start considering chapters when I writing...  
> Well mega kudos to everyone who caught the extra codes in last weeks chapter (plus the little planting/payoff with Ed's arm!).  
> Anyone remember back in like. chapter One when we set up all the stuff with the wall? the ether? chekovs mf gun.  
> Art!! AAAA:  
> [1](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/636697190049415169/lol-ill-never-stop-apparently-yet-another-fic) [2](https://elriccore.tumblr.com/post/635603737582419968/fweeeeeeeee-drew-a-quick-thing-for) [3](https://fierer.tumblr.com/post/636602939193049088/uh-oh-liathgray-i-drew-something-anyway-read) [4](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/636585222007357440/tradition-im-so-scared-for-the-next-chapter)
> 
> 18-15-25 23-9-20-8 1 13-1-20-3-8 23-8-1-20 8-5 7-15-14-14-1 4-15


	15. Manhunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Graphic violence. Being burned alive. Intrusive thoughts.  
> The first part of this chapter is intense and potentially disturbing. If you're squeamish you might want to skip ahead.

Roy almost didn’t catch it.

He was too distracted by the loud thump of his youngest subordinate being thrown into the ground. He disappeared from Roy’s sight, the horrible crack of his skull meeting something hard ringing out like a sickly-intoned siren.

The array had ignited just a split second after Alistair had reached them and Roy didn’t care anymore.

He heard no signs of the kid trying to get back up. Not so much as a pained noise or characteristically irritated grumble. No shout or rustling of grass.

Nothing.

It was quiet.

And just like that little thread from before, the lifeline that kept him from snapping and giving in to all the disgustingly violent bubbles of thought was _gone_.

Not even broken or clipped. Just gone.

Like it had never been there in the first place and Roy suddenly wondered why he hadn’t just thrown caution to the wind and torched the whole town before they ever got the chance to reveal their gruesome little secret. 

He caught the match and set the man on fire. It was easy enough to do, really. A well rehearsed gesture with instruction to the oxygen he’d practiced for years. It was easy to let someone’s skin peel and burn without killing them. Most people don’t know that.

He could see it rolling off in greasy layers, shrugged from cellulite and melting together with strands of hair. Blisters sprouted like a crop of irony all over Alistair’s hands and forearms, the cloth of his shirt now forever attached to his flesh. Until he reduced it to ashes, anyways. But Roy decided that wouldn’t be for a while.

The man had been slow in toying with them, so he’d return the fucking favour.

He couldn’t hear the strangled cries over the roar of fire, heat brushing over his skin just harshly enough to further stoke his own anger. It was rage, really.

Unadulterated and horrifically controlling rage that held a single, burning wooden wick in hand and commanded dust explosions on loop. Alistair was incoherent, his speech unintelligible.

_Good._

Langue didn’t suit beasts all that much. Hopefully his tongue would fill with boils so he wouldn’t get the privilege of stealing voices anymore. The match remained buzzing, pinched lightly between two fingers as Roy fell into a dreadful calm. He’d been right.

This was _easy_.

If only he’d been given the time earlier to carve up the array seared to his eyelids like an overexposed afterimage. If only he hadn’t been so stubborn in insisting Ed kept ahold of the matches, just to prove that they’d get out fine.

(Who had he been trying to prove that to? Himself or Ed?)

If only he’d listened to Hughes and not stalled an extra day. If only he’d brought someone with him. If only he’d blown Alistair’s fucking brains out when he had a rifle in hand.

If… if… if…

What’s done is done. Roy had a target to broil and would take his damn time doing it. The man howled out a garbled sound. It might’ve been a curse or maybe he was begging. It made no difference. The air was biting and the fire gnawed away at hair and gums in a slow crawl. Roy waited for the light to fade down to a glow before letting it flare again, the blazing jaws of pure oxygen overheating, sinking its teeth into Alistair’s leg and drawing out a cry. It matched well with the birds, their screams pitched like the whistling of a cyclone, fluttering from their posts.

From above he saw them swerving and regrouping, dotted throughout the sky as an ashen blue breathed across the horizon. Roy’s eyes slid, meandering around the dim area where the firelight spat ghosts and little mirages, like bodies strewn across the tunnels—grass?

Both. Neither. Who cares.

It was raining gasoline.

 _Burn_.

For the sake of all that is rotten and ugly, _burn_.

His gaze went clinging to every bit of movement, watching the monster of a man claw his way forward, quivering and snarling through the smoke. His expression was human, much to the Colonel’s dismay.

A human being had done all this.

Ed still hadn’t given a single hint that he was coherent.

Or even conscious.

Maybe he was already in the ground.

Roy let his eyes lock on the man’s, because the stagnant, unending flow of unequivocal anger was already successfully pulling him back in with the changing tides. 

“Wait, wait, wait—“ Alistair started. He was cut off with a blazing sting to the shoulder. Roy though perhaps he should weld his mouth shut while he was at it. Knitting his eyes together wouldn’t be too much trouble either. He coaxed the oxygen down into the man's throat. It was as though he could feel his vocal cords, tight with pain and oh so delicate. 

“Something you should know.” Roy started coldly. He glared down at the half charred remains of a person and decided that no, it hadn’t been a human at all. Never was. “I don’t take kindly to those who kill my subordinates.”

“But he’s not—“ 

The match fizzled and screamed in a torrent of red. The words died into a howl as Alistair’s voice box collapsed inward in a burst of flames. He vomited up the oily, bloody, charred mess, choking it out and clutching at his throat like that might bring it back. The man hacked out a trail of black and red, grease coated and slimly like the monster it came from.

Roy couldn’t help the dark satisfaction it brought. It didn’t show on his face, only in the way his hand twitched, itching to carry out its typical flick despite the fact that it would be unnecessary.

He let the streams of oxygen shoot out in needlepoints again and again, lacing a set of burns around the man’s feet so he’d stop trying to move.

From the wrong direction, he heard Ed’s voice. It didn’t matter. “Stop it!” The kid had been thrown in the other way. 

Roy didn’t even bother turning around, he just sent the flames a-roaring. The fake little mask of tinkered vocal cords fell away into a chilling scream. Alistair’s son fell just as quickly and pitifully as him.

It was so easy.

A weak, petulant little voice was begging him to stop. Roy shoved it aside and glowered down at Alistair. He was still awake, to his credit. But oh, how little it mattered when fire was still echoing across Roy’s palm.

It seared across the crown of his head and the man slumped over into a pathetically nasty heap of bones and melted skin. His eye sockets were empty and steaming, gouged into pits. It smelled like sand and embers and reeked of blood.

It was awful and encouraging at the same time.

Offal? Awful? He could taste both in the air. Using flames like a surgeon’s utensils was simple and turning the match into a little fiery knife would be child’s play.

Maybe it would be fitting to give the Teller’s a taste of their own medicine, hacking away whatever remained of their tongues and leaving them to suffocate on the stringy excess and ribbons of blood. Roy drank in the light and the murmuring groans of agony. It was horrifically musical. He wouldn’t mind if it became a duet.

Roy turned slowly, his eyes locking onto the younger man with apathy and indifference playing about his eyes. Maybe cruelty had been stirred into the cocktail at some point. No one was there to witness it anyhow.

And these two deserved it. Aside from the fact that they’d killed, that they’d taken dozens of families to early graves for the sake of their imagined traditions, that they’d dragged the whole town down with them and indoctrinated outsiders into their sickly mania.

Aside from all the haunting, disturbed things they’d manage to do… they’d gone after Ed.

It could have been the fact that Ed was so young. Perhaps the slight protectiveness Roy felt towards anyone under his command was a part of it too, but that wasn’t quite right now, was it? 

Ed had aged a hundred years by the time he set his sights on the State Alchemist program. It wasn’t just that he was still a kid or even that they’d physically hurt him.

They’d found a way to scare the boy who’d walked through hell.

That was what sent his mind into a blank zone and let anger file every motion down to a razor of light.

The fire touched his fingertips and a jet of liquefied, boiling air lit up once again. He couldn’t even feel the burns that circled halfway down his knuckles. They peeled away his fingerprints and it didn’t even hurt.

It was the same as when he snapped: sometimes you have to work so hard that your fingers go numb and start to bleed from the pressure. They grow calluses. It hurt like hell. And then you switch to the other and do it all over again.

Roy breathed and watched little knife-like blades of fire go cutting across the younger man’s skin. He screamed in a voice that didn’t belong to him. It belonged to Ed and he’d stolen it. Again. He did it again and Roy’s vision tilted to one side, sharp and unfocused at the same time. A charge of fiery oxygen snaked right into the man’s mouth and he was left to gag on shards of teeth and boiled gums. Boils exploded outwards, crawling over his lips and down his chin. He spat out his own skin like it had been something sour he'd eaten.

God, it was just so damn easy. He kept on screaming in the sound ( _the voice_ ) that had wormed into his nightmares. Roy didn’t slow or falter. The flames came in needle-like spikes over and over.

“Colonel,” A voice whispered breathlessly in the distance. He sent another vicious wail of heat, entertaining all the more expendable parts and how they could be popped off. Torn at the seams. Roy felt incredibly numb.

“Hey, Colonel!” It grew more frantic, shocked and… fearful? Sure, that fit well enough. Roy willed the fire into a balm, layered over his victims skin. It wouldn’t kill him. It would hurt, but it wouldn’t kill him. The shouts that were wrenched from the crumpled body argued otherwise. “Stop…” The voice from behind croaked. It grew stronger, but still choked. “W-wait. Wait, _stop_.”

Roy didn’t.

“Colonel, listen!”

Roy didn’t.

“Stop it! You’ll kill him!” It sounded ragged and cracked.

He felt oddly cold. The heat still rose the feeling of stinging smog and embers, pricking atop his arms and face, but he felt cold. The first few licks of sunlight dared to curl around the hills in the distance, meekly watching as Roy calmly threw another bomb towards the still groaning, twitching frame.

“Stop!” Something grabbed onto his arm, digging into his sleeve and sounding desperate. Roy shoved whatever it was back and whirled around. For a split second, none of it really registered. Roy raised his hand as the last gasp of fire fled from the match. It flickered out before the circle could blink to life again. It was only a split second.

He’d almost done it. He had almost sent out another blaze to writhe around the person no more than two feet away.

It would have been easy.

He’d _almost_ … if the match hadn’t gone out… _fuck._

Ed stared at him, back peddling so fast he nearly tripped. The kid’s eyes were wide with horror, darting between Roy and the two corpses— _men_. The two men.

(Those aren’t human, remember? How could they be.) 

Ed looked scared.

He looked terrified.

It all bled away in an instant and Roy’s shoulders went slack. “Fullmetal,” He started carefully.

Ed—

— _flinched_.

He took a full step back, looking like he was prepared to take off at a moment's notice. Roy froze. 

The blond was casting glances at his handiwork, mouth parted but no word coming out. When his gaze finally fell back onto the older alchemist, it was stoney and filled by unease. Ed looked downright horrified.

And hurt.

And betrayed.

His weight shifted, swallowing thickly before making a wide arc around Roy.

A terribly, unnecessarily wide crescent shaped path wherein Ed’s eyes flashed to him every few moments like he was expecting another blast. He knelt beside the son, hesitantly reaching down and pressing his fingers against his neck. He was searching for a pulse.

Time ground to a standstill, his own heart climbing into his throat. Roy stayed where he was, watching the younger breathe a small sigh of relief and feeling something rotten sprout up in his stomach. Ed didn’t look back as he padded over to Alistair and repeated the same motion, his hand brushing against mangled twists of skin, all of it tinted red and black. He waited in silence as the guilt made its timely appearance, dropping an anvil on his head and making his stomach flip. 

It was _easy_.

It was _horrid_.

There came no sigh of relief this time. Ed’s form grew tense. He slowly stood, backing away from the charred body. His back was to Roy, but he had no trouble guessing the expression of horror that was surely written across his face. 

Hughes’ words came back to him, far too late and stinging with the influence of hindsight. 

_Roy, please. It’s not worth it._

It hadn’t been. Not really. 

Ed’s eyes remained stalwartly downcast, refusing to ever drift so much as an inch upwards. Roy was at a loss. What could he possibly say?

There was nothing. So he didn't try.

The blond dropped down into the grass beside the person who was still breathing, gently rolling him over and scanning critically. He still looked shocked and unsettled, eyes perpetually growing wider when the fresh seared tissue was revealed, the stench of burnt hair and hot blood in the air. 

He could barely see Ed’s face, only his profile and the building knot in his chest swelled further, spiralling and twisting up into something pretty damn dreadful. He belatedly noticed a thin split above Ed’s eye, rivets of red weaving down his temple and cheek. 

Something about it snapped Roy back into action. Perhaps it was remembering what made him lose his senses in the first place. He started forward, kind enough to be sure his steps avoided falling heavily.

Ed sat, carefully peeling back the pieces of cloth that hadn’t been adhered to flesh. The Colonel stood behind him, only a few feet short of being within arms reach, his mouth pressed shut and entirely unsure of what to do. A little line of crimson trailed its way down the blond’s face, smeared by the occasional gale that threw his hair to one side. It muddied the gold with casual abandon. 

Ed was stiff and he absolutely knew Roy was there. He knew.

The boy’s shoulders were so tense a tendon might break, eyes trained down but flickering. 

“You okay?” Roy asked.

The younger recoiled, leaning away from his voice like it was poisonous. “ _Fine_.” Ed’s tone was clipped and tight.

“You’re bleeding.” He told the younger warily. 

“I’m _fine_.”

Roy knelt with a soft exhale, shooting what he hoped was a familiar, frustrated look. Ed didn’t meet his eyes. He barely acknowledged Roy at all. 

Yeah, that kind of stung. He winced inwardly and tried once more, reaching out just to tap Ed on the shoulder. “Are you su—“

The kid jerked away before the motion was even started. “Stop. Shut up. Just—shut up. _Leave_.” He hissed. Roy was thrown. He immediately backed off, selfishly hurt by the words. It was the sound of betrayal that struck the hardest.

His voice caught in his throat.

“I—“ He saw the kid’s hand curl, dropping limply to his side and glaring down at the myriad of blisters. He should protest. Stay nearby just in case something went wrong again. Being within earshot was the minimum, but Ed was still faltering, reacting to Roy’s words with vitriol and outright animosity. Ed had always been a hurricane of a person. This was the eye of it: deadly calm and ranging. Roy wilted by a fraction and stepped away. “—okay.”

Roy turned, stupidly leaving the younger to soak in the aftermath and started towards the wall. He took little comfort in the fact that neither of the Tellers would be opening their eyes anytime soon.

Blocking out noise came easily, though it wasn’t like there was much to start with now. Just the rustling of tall grass and an odd bird overhead, lost and searching for its flock. Roy felt no sympathy for the thing.

He didn’t feel sympathy at all. Not now.

Regret and guilt were overwhelming, barreling through him and constricting around his chest, but for all the wrong reasons. He didn’t feel an inch of remorse for killing or maiming the two family members. He had been right, after all.

It was _easy_.

It was cathartic. 

It was simple.

He couldn’t find it in him to pity people who’d terrorized and killed so frivolously. For selfish, imagined reasons, they’d slaughtered and mangled people, even after their deaths only finding ways to disrespect and sully whatever memory they could’ve held. 

_Hypocrite_ , the fresh crowd of morals screamed. _Hypocrite_.

They were right, of course. If the Tellers… if _Roy_ , of all people, refused to grant them the dignity of being people, what would that make him? A corpse, perhaps. No, he’d already decided that the bodies around here looked too human and… and with how Ed was looking at him, there was no way a human is what he looked like.

It was an expression that would likely stay in his mind for years in a haunting visage. The kid had looked angry.

Worse, he looked _horrified_. Shaken to his core. Scared. And who could blame him? 

After _that…_

After Roy had torched the two at his leisure and come so, so, so disgustingly close to turning it onto Ed. He’d _almost_ …

If the match hadn’t gone out…

He felt sick, repulsed by his own skin and bone. There was a wrenching, icy feeling in his stomach that spread outwards and his heart poured harder than it had even with a knife to his throat.

He wanted to lay down for a decade and not exist. Make like those cut up bodies and just decompose into the ground. That’s all he was good for at this point because god he just screwed up so fucking bad it made his head spin and his vision swim and everything was _ringing_. It was a mistake. 

A massive, horrific, gruesome mistake that he couldn’t change but… but…

But he did what he had set out to do. The Tellers are gone. They can’t do anything to either of them now. They weren’t being hunted or hiding in tar filled channels, blanketed in maddening darkness or hiding in the rotten obituaries of murder victims.

So no, Roy didn’t think he could force himself to feel any kind of pity towards the Tellers nor guilt for the fate he’d dealt out. 

The feelings that were crawling up his spine like a blade against skin came from Ed’s voice and eyes that reflected something awful. Something had already been wrong, with the way the younger alchemist was jumping at his every question and casting a cagey aurora over himself like a security blanket. 

And Roy had just made it a million times worse.

He felt like an unrivalled idiot, mentally berating himself in a cycle that started and ended with the same fearful expression worn upon his subordinates face. It didn’t seem quite fair. He was just one single existentially involved and entirely too unprepared, exhausted and reactive stack of skin skewered onto a skeleton. It was a mistake that he regretted ten times over because he’d managed to do the very thing that had set him off in the first place.

He scared the boy who’d walked through hell.

* * *

Roy finally forced himself to return to where Ed had been after an hour.

The sun was hauling itself up, a yawn of white light being spilled across the land and pouring out long shadows at every bump in the road. From the looks of things, Ed had done all that he could to treat the burns, though that admittedly wasn’t much. 

The man himself was still entirely unconscious. Roy doubted he’d be awake before the calendar flipped through the rest of the month. Ed sat with his metal leg drawn up to his chest, the other laid flat with his remaining arm curled around his automail protectively. He was watching the rise and fall of the man’s fire-touched chest intently. 

Roy knew Ed had heard him approach, but the boy said nothing.

He flinched, though. Again.

“Fullmetal.”

No response. Not even an acknowledgement. He steeled himself, searching for the slightest hint that Ed could even hear him. He could, of course. But there was no sign of it. It was like Roy wasn’t even there. “We need to go.” He said cautiously. “The phones here are all messed up. The train station is a little ways out.”

No twinges or shifting. If he didn’t know any better he’d think that Ed was holding his breath, waiting for Roy to walk away again before he deemed it safe to exhale. “Come on. It’s only a few miles.” 

The blond remained ramrod straight, like a casted mold that wasn’t even capable of motion. Roy took a step forward, lingering a couple feet away from the younger and dutifully avoiding the scorched set of limbs and soot-tangled hair. Ed leaned away in a microscopic movement.

Roy pinched the bridge of his nose with a soft sigh. “You can’t ignore me forever.”

“Go by yourself if it’s so important.” Ed spat bitterly. 

“I can’t just leave you here.”

“Well I can’t just leave _him_ here.” He shot back. The animosity reappeared, revving at full throttle and like a punch to the gut for Roy. He felt terribly, pathetically helpless. One of the most powerful alchemists in the nation—the only person alive with control over flame alchemy—and he couldn’t do anything. There wasn’t a way to fix this or brush it off.

Maybe Roy was too used to being able to snap his fingers and bury the problems that arose. That’s how things worked in the military, anyways. It left him defenceless now. They taught him how to make people afraid, not how to _gain_ trust.

Re-gain, more succinctly.

It was a trust that he’d just sliced in half. Ed’s hand tightened its grip, digging into the side of his leg.

“I’ll send a medical team back here,” Roy tried to assure, “but for now we need to actually get in contact with some backup.”

“Go by yourself.” Ed repeated stubbornly. 

“I can’t do that.” 

The blond finally turned to look at him. His eyes were dark and angry. He thought he knew what Ed was like when he got mad but apparently not. His entire face was dressed in betrayal and hurt and rage. Roy’s mouth opened, but the words withered before he could force them out of his throat.

It’s not easy to swallow absurdity of the serpentine paths taken to get to where they were now, golden eyes fixated on him with hate and alarm lashed around his frame, and now it feels like the only option is to stand a generous distance back from the epicentre and ignore for a second that someone is _dead_ and suggest a monstrous bonfire. As if ridding the fields of the evidence would do anything other than taint the air with flesh and smoke.

Ed turned away in a blink, pushing himself upright. “Fine.” He spat the word like it had been decaying on his tongue. Roy absent mildly reached, ready to offer the younger alchemist a hand or a shoulder to help balance, but Ed put a stop to his attempts with a biting word.

“ _Don’t_.”

They walked in utter silence. Roy shot glances to the boy, watching his steadfast expression for any twitches or shifts, but there were none. He squinted through the morning light and tried to find anything to distract his thoughts. A plan for what comes next.

Get in touch with Eastern Command. Have them send MPs from a neighbouring town over and take care of arrests. The evidence was mostly intact, and with statements from himself and Ed there should be no issue in verifying what had happened. Roy could presumably claim self defence for the charred set of bodies, even if it wasn’t entirely truthful. Not to say it hadn’t been in self defensive, use that the force was… _excessive_ , and that was being lenient.

He could ask Hughes to lead the investigation. Hawkeye and the rest of his team could work to correct the multitude of incorrect reports. He should call Alphonse too, get him to head back towards East City soon. 

Ed would need some time in a hospital. 

Roy wondered how long it would be until the kid decided to talk to him. A day? A week? Maybe months? Maybe he’d just… never speak to him again.

That wouldn’t be unreasonable.

Roy wouldn’t talk to himself either if he had the choice.

It was impossible to say for sure. At the moment, he could confidently guess that Ed would only ever talk to him in acidic words. That felt rather hopeful though.

He could simply resign. Or request to be put under someone else.

There was nothing stopping Ed from never interacting with the older alchemist again.

With the birds gone, there was nothing to announce their departure. Roy opted to transmute an opening in the wall as opposed to walking around the edge until they found one of the ironclad gates. It was stiflingly still and quiet.

Even the wind was respecting the wall of tension that had built up, sturdier and higher than the one of fieldstone. Ed’s guard had gone so far up Roy was roughly one hundred and sever percent sure they’d never come down. Not around him, anyways. The blond was still carrying himself with a stagnant limp, the blood on his forehead having gone untended to maybe just plain old unnoticed.

The sky was cloudless. It was terribly unfitting. The sky should know better than to look so pristine and warm when the air was thick with unease. The road had enough respect to look ugly and muddled. The morning dampness clung to the dirt, adhering to Roy’s own clothes and dampening the enduring smell of burning meat.

It was about three miles to the train station, if Roy was remembering correctly. Forty some-odd minutes of painful, numbing quiet.

Ed looked at the ground, watching his feet and keeping his balance only relative to what is should have been. The missing arm left him even more lopsided. Roy had to beat back the urge to put aside both his own pride and the rightful anger that Ed was alight with and help him stay upright.

For the entire duration, neither said a word. Roy could almost feel the malice in the air and thought better than to try talking to the kid.

Only after the sun was looming and the sets to a wooden platform was laid before them did he make a weak attempt.

“I’m... gonna go find a phone.”

Ed stared at the ground, his arm wrapped around himself and not sparing a glance when Roy spoke. He left to do as he’d said.

The station itself was sparse, with only enough space to house a dozen or so people, a glass shield and a shallow chart detailing the train schedule. There was no one behind the window, which wasn’t all that surprising seeing as it was roughly five in the morning and no trains were scheduled to drop by until the late afternoon. 

There was a lock on the glass, where normally it would slide open to speak with whoever was dealing with tickets and payment. He didn’t have the energy to try unlocking it, instead simply driving his elbow into the glass.

It wasn't his finest moment, but after all that he just happened he hardly cared about the slight against his own ego that came from this little bit of recklessness.

It shattered with the second impact. 

He reached for the phone, his sleeve pulled up past his wrist to brush away the shards and mindlessly dialling a number that certainly wasn’t military. Logically, that's what he should have done, it would’ve gotten things done the fastest but with a mighty guillotine carved in guilt waiting just above his head, some part of his subconscious decided otherwise.

To his absolute, breathless relief, the call didn’t fade into the lethargic chanting of children's voices. It was picked up with a clutter, a familiar voice, groggy voice rolling out.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“You were right.” Was all he could say. Roy gripped the phone, one hand braced against the counter where the remains of the window had been swept aside. On the other end, he heard the muffled shifting of cloth.

“ _Huh? What… Roy?_ ” Hughes sounded like he’d been drinking liquid smoke, his tone cracking with morning sluggishness. “ _It’s like… five-thirteen_.”

“You were right, Hughes.” He repeated. “About Blackwell. It wasn’t just some mistakes.”

“ _What’re you talking about?_ ” There was the telltale, coiled sound of mattress springs being shifted. “ _What’re you calling so damn early?_ ”

Roy leaned his head down, the phone still pressed against his ear. “I need you to do something for me.” His breathing had already decided to pick up a little. Roy swallowed back the grande orchestra of high strung self loathing. “Like, _now_.”

There must’ve been some particularly urgent energy to his voice, because the other man immediately snapped to attention. Roy heard the muffled calls of Gracia, just barely fluttering through the background, asking if something was wrong.

“ _Did something happen?_ ” He asked. His voice was a little alarmed. The shuffling through the phone line continued until Roy heard the flicks of a fumbling of cords and hurried footsteps. The line clicked twice, presumably being picked up from some other part of the house as to not worry his family. “ _Roy, talk to me. What’s going on?_ ”

“I need you to send some people here. MPs and a medical team, whoever can get here fastest.” He had to pawn the arrests onto someone else, there was no way he could handle anything other than collapsing into sleep right now.

Hughes stuttered for a moment, dumbfounded. “ _Here? Where’s—aren’t you in East City?_ ”

He took a painfully deep breath. “No,”

“ _Then where are you? Last I heard you were slacking off_ …” The other man started, his mind starting to warm and ready itself to churn half baked ideas into fully formed theories in a blink, no matter how backbreaking. “ _Wait_.” He breathed.

Roy stiffened. “Hughes—“ The alchemist started, nearly a hiss. Because he _knew_ how his friend’s mind worked and he knew that he was envisioning all the worst case scenarios before the words even left Roys mouth. 

“ _You’re in Blackwell Springs, aren’t you?_ ”

“Yes, and I need you to get some backup over here now!” He practically barked. The unnecessariness of his tone wasn’t lost on him but _god_ he was tired and just wanted to talk to his friend, as childish and silly as it felt. He needed just a sliver of assurance. A gram, an ounce, _anything_. Even if he didn’t deserve it. 

And he really didn't.

“ _Okay, okay!_ ” The older tried to placate. “ _I will, but what the hell are you doing out there?_ ”

Roy’s mouth opened and closed.

_Just say it. Get it over with already before he flies into a panic._

Damn, wouldn’t it be nice if he could? Too bad Roy himself was already well on his way to being submerged in anxiety. “ _Roy?_ ” Worry was leaching into Hughes’ voice, gradual at first but ramping with each consonant. 

“You were right.” He said again. He just… couldn’t force the admission from his throat. It didn’t matter that he’d been wrong to wait, that confession was simply enough but—

Hughes became grave. “ _Wait. No, what about Ed?_ ” Roy’s forehead touched the chilled metal of the counter. The other started up frantically. “ _He’s not—_ “

“He’s fine.” Roy told him. 

“ _Fine as in unhurt or fine as in safe?_ ”

“Safe. Mostly.”

There was a soft sigh of relief before the questioning air once again drifted through the phone. “ _What about you?_ ”

“I…” Everything tasted bitter. He let his lungs fill with the overpowering smell of nothing and then exhaled. “I did something I shouldn’t have.”

He could feel the anticipation building into a buzz. The guilt hardly let up, chipping right away at his head until a mild migraine began to fester. “ _You’re avoiding the question._ ” His voice was still wrinkled with a sleepy daze, but Hughes’ urging rang loud and clear.

“Just… send a medical team.” Roy slowly brought his head up from where it had rested, running a hand down his face and washing what he could of the fragility from his tone. It was still flimsy at best.

“ _For who? You or Ed? Both…?_ ” He asked in rapid succession. Had he really put the kid gloves on already? Roy must be doing a pretty sorry job of covering all the mountains of exhaustion and guilt that’d been piled atop his shoulders. Or maybe Hughes was just more perceptive in his morning stupor than Roy was giving him credit for. 

“No—well, _yeah_ , but no.”

“ _Roy_.” He said lowly.

“You know people in forensics, don’t you?”

Hughes huffed. “ _I do, but why does it matter?_ ”

“Contact a coroner.”

“ _What?!_ ” Hughes cried.

“We’ve got bodies out here.”

“ _Are… are any of them burned?_ ”

Roy took a pause that went on for just a little too long. He could hear his friend growing antsy on the other end.

He gripped the little speaker, staring down at the remains of the glass window. It threw a pretty weary reflection back at him, split into dozens of fragments. What a way to illustrate how he felt.

Being cracked apart but roughly ten times too many emotions, each entirely overpowered in their own right. He breathed.

“Yes.”

* * *

He could put a face to the voice now.

Before it had felt nonsensical—a disembodied set of teeth and a mouth that offered up some pretty awful ideas. But it was separate from Mustang. 

Was.

Had been.

Apparently Ed had been right to recoil at his voice.

_Do you really think a solider wouldn’t kill you?_

He found a bench along the platform, rickety and weather spoiled. It creaked when he dropped down carelessly. 

Ed brought a hand to his face, working his locked jaw before it gave him another headache from all the tension and stress. He heard the breaking of glass from inside, a silvery symphony of chimes as they fell and then nothing after that.

Mustang said he’d call for backup.

Ed wanted to get far away from the tiny, bloodstained town as soon as possible. 

Preferably without the Colonel hovering over his shoulder. Giving him worried looks and reaching to help as though he hadn’t just _fucking burned people alive._

Ed curled in on himself, his chin rested upon his metal knee and arm hugged loosely to the prosthetic. He felt dizzy and devastatingly tired, but couldn’t possibly feel safe enough to let himself sleep. Not after that.

The taste of sweat and charred tissue refused to leave him, clinging to the back of his throat in a parasitic way that leeched to the rest of him. His limbs felt heavy and everything _ached_. The memories flashes relentlessly and he wished they’d up and vanish before it drove him insane. Ed never used to be afraid of Mustang.

Not really.

He wasn't a scary person in the slightest.

But all that came tumbling down. In the span of only a minute Ed had realized why the Flame Alchemist had such an infamous reputation, despite his outward behaviour. He thought the Colonel was a decent person, not good or even kind by a stretch, but decent.

Trying to be good and make things better, whether it be on a national scale or through sliding Ed leads. He was a decent person and honestly, that was all Ed could ever expect from anyone. 

But it had been a lie.

A clever facade and now he felt stupid and unsettled and stupid again. Ten times over or maybe a thousand, Ed felt so damn stupid. Ed could put a face to the voice and it was one that made his throat tighten out of pure reflectivity, his stomach go cold from anxiety and his head start to pour with a violent warning that there was _danger_.

His finger ran a line down the old wooden bench, following its creases and crows feet in an attempt to distract himself. The lines squirmed and twisted, almost snake-like in their patterns, writhing and shooting out into rigid cracks before crawling to a stop, nestled into jagged circles like a person huddling in on themselves while they _burned—_

_Stop that. Stop thinking about it._

It was impossible. It had only been a few hours ago, of course he couldn’t drag his consciousness off to somewhere else. This was fresh and stinging with terror and betrayal. 

Ed had opened his eyes to the sound of croaking screams, pulled from Marcel violently. He sounded like a dying animal, guttural and spitting up nothing but gargled coughs. Ed had only been able to see Mustang’s back, stiff as a board and unflinching to the wheezing sounds.

Marcel had been begging too. Cajoling and asking for some semblance of mercy only to have his limbs carved by the tongues of fire. They came again and again and then Marcel had started to cry, well and truly. 

Using Ed’s voice.

Mustang didn’t even move an inch, sending shot after shot as though it were darts in a board, meaningless. Ed wasn’t even sure if the Colonel had been aware of what was going on by that point, seemingly lost in his own malevolent display of power. For a moment, the man had revelled in it and Ed collected his senses.

All of it had been awful and eye opening in the worst of ways, but when Mustang finally stopped… the _look_ on his face, hand poised and crisply uncaring, ready to dole out the same retribution on Ed.

It had lasted a second but made his entire body feel pricklingly numb.

Ed blinked hard. His hand pulled a little at his collar, feeling the warmth of a bruise encircling his throat and making his breathing haggard. It felt like the air was made up of glass shards, each intake leaving slices down to his lungs. 

No matter what the voices of good faith and weary trust told him, Ed was certain that if Mustang hadn’t taken a moment of hesitation, he’d be left as a collection of seared skin in that field.

Not even that much: if the match hadn’t gone out—

There was just nothing in Mustang’s gaze. Nothing at all.

It was bland and dull, empty save for the vicious gleam. Gone in the next moment, but the first had lasted eons. The vile mutilation of human bodies was beyond what he thought a person would be willing to do and all too familiar.

It was the smell.

It was the blackened skin.

It was the uncontainable, spasming twitches that remained even after the heart puttered to a stop. 

The images of each icily razed corpses blurred and morphed together, it almost didn’t matter which was which. Ed could only be pulled down, deep into an undertow of morbid thought experiments and cruel theories. It was like self inflicted torture done with only the power of his stupid, traitorous mind and the ideas uncontrollable no matter what he tried.

Distractions did nothing, the mediations taught to him by his Teacher fell flat, even worrying at his lip until it grew slick with iron. None of it eased the mental tirade of macabre stills, nor the expression one Mustang’s face when he’d turned.

“Hey,”

_Flinch._

Ed tensed, his eyes gluing themselves to the wear-shined rails. He tracked the footsteps as they approached, coming to a stop beside the bench. “Backup is on the way.” Mustang said quietly. Ed sunk down lower against the seat and hoped the man would take a damn hint. “And a medical team.” He added to Ed’s silence.

The younger turned away further. He heard Mustang’s weight shifting uncertainly, looking for something that wasn’t there. How he could suddenly act so _normal_ , Ed had no idea. “Can I join you?” He asked.

Ed sniffed. “Do what you want.”

His voice sounded low, ragged from the harsh pull of a noose, but the biting intent was still there.

He wanted to get up and yell at the Colonel to leave him be, but couldn’t find the courage to challenge him now. Because all of a sudden, Ed was afraid. To a tilted, lopsided degreed, but afraid all the same.

The older man carefully sat down next to him, keeping a generous distance away out of either respect or unease. The way his fingers drummed along the wrought iron armrest. Ed pressed himself against the back of the bench, its arching shape digging uncomfortably into his back. “You’re still bleeding.” Mustang commented.

Ed swiped a thumb across the small gash, decorated in a graceless tear near his hairline. It was warm and glossy with a trail of crimson. He frowned at it like it was to blame for all this.

The blond scrubbed it harshly with his sleeve, wincing to himself as the motion tore open the existing scab. The air became tainted. Ed’s mind began to spiral.

Down, it flew, headlong into a black pit that breathed with the land. It felt like the putrid stuff was soaking into him, filling his lungs until there was no air and every exhale was a great, choking heave. It pulled him to the closest thing it had to a riverbed, strew with decomposing bodies and piled with bones. People and animals alike were half preserved in the pitch.

It took all his willpower not to thrash at the imaginary swell of tar and death. Instead, Ed’s shoulders furled and he shivered.

It was spring.

The air still spat chills down his spine.

He heard scratching, soft and meandering against the rust decorated metal, picking away flecks of the orange and red. His eyes darted to Mustang, watching him absently peel back a layer of corrosion. His own hand fidgeted for a moment. He tamped it down with a quick internal lash. 

“If you’re going to yell, go ahead.” Mustang said finally.

Ed looked back to the train tracks. “I’m not going to yell.” He whispered, near inaudible. If there had been any wind, it would have spirited the words away alongside dandelion seeds and children wishes. Or maybe their songs.

“So what will you do, then? Pretend I don’t exist?” He asked.

Ed chewed his lip silently, not daring to let his eyes wander more than a millimetre away from the tracks, zeroing in on a little chip on the left side where a bolt had been shaved down by wear, blighted into a shard of metal.

Mustang’s voice grew hollow.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

His head shot up at that, whirling to the older alchemist before he could think better of it. Ed kept his mouth clamped shut, his eyes hard and critical. The older man didn’t face him. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees and gazing out over the yellow stained landscape, far too bright and cheerful to match all that had just happened. His hands had stopped picking at the rust, not they sat laced together.

“You don’t have to say anything. I get that you’re probably pissed at me and… and likely will be for a while. That’s fine.” 

Mustang wrung his hands together, palms rested flat in one another’s embrace, his eyes downcast and guilt coming down in buckets. Ed’s biting gaze didn’t so much as waver. The older alchemist bowed his head with a sigh. “But I—“ His frame tensed up. “—I’m sorry you were there to see it.”

Mustang paused, his eyes darting too Ed. For a few seconds, he looked taken aback, surprised that Ed was giving him any kind of acknowledgment and probably trying to puzzle out if it was a good thing or not. Ed didn’t have an answer, so he peeled himself away and went back to counting how many screws were loose or missing among the railway.

“But if you’d let me—“

“Shut up.” Ed cut him off with a rasp. 

It wasn’t growled or spat like a threat. The words rolled from his throat effortlessly, untouched by the tendrils of confusion and anger that were choking him from the inside out. He just sounded hurt. He _was_ hurt.

Mustang gave him a startlingly unguarded, damn near pleading look. “Fullmetal,”

Ed flinched.

He didn’t have the energy to cover it or pretend it was anything less than fear driven. He flinched and Mustang saw it. “Please just shut up.” The younger alchemist said again, still riddled with the aftermath of defeat. He was just… _so_ tired.

This was all so ridiculous. Ed wanted to fall asleep for a year and wake up when Al was back from Resembool; when he arm was recovered from wherever it had been stowed away; when one of the few adults in his life that he actually _trusted_ wasn’t killing in cold blood while a man just barely into his adult years begged to be spared.

When it was easier.

Because this was hard, and this was terrible. 

He didn’t trust himself to sleep.

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. I don't _care_.” His head dropped down, forehead held against the cool metal of his leg in a refreshing, grounding spread of feeling. He hadn’t even realized how numb he’d started to feel.

“Okay.” Mustang placated. “I’ll leave if you want me to.”

Ed waited, inhaling the clean, not-tar, not-smoke-filled air.

He didn’t want to be near the Colonel. He didn’t want to have to say a word or even give him the dignity of a nod. 

But... Ed didn’t want to be alone really, either. If he couldn’t trust the world to let him rest, and if he couldn’t trust Mustang, well, _at all_ , then at the very least he deserved someone to share his silence. It wasn’t something he normally liked. Ed spent his time filling the blank spaces in conversation to refrain from it growing awkward or stiff. This was the exception.

They say misery loves company, don’t they?

“Do what you want.”

Ed was certainly miserable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god okay so I accidentally exited the tab right before hitting post so this is a little late and there's probably some typos but fuck it... anyways I hope y'all are doing well! hopefully this chapter was manageable...? Here's some dope art: [1](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/637501544342994944/his-eyes-were-wide-open-glaring-in-a-slash) [2](https://csealia.tumblr.com/post/637315751272906752/time-for-ed-to-absolutely-rock-some-cultists-more) [3](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/637326728184954880/this-was-my-favorite-scene-so-i-had-to-draw-it) [4](https://katharinedraws00.tumblr.com/post/637269822922768384/fullmetal-give-me-some-second-ok-im)
> 
> 20-8-9-19 9-19 23-8-1-20 25-1-12-12 23-1-14-20-5-4


	16. Illusionist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Intrusive thought. Non-graphic treatment of injuries.

It didn’t take long until people came rolling in.

Trucks and cars tore down the road, spitting up a cloud of dust and grinding to a halt beside the train station. Good thing, too, because Ed was sure those loose bolts would rattle right out of place if an engine dared to come within a mile.

Soon enough the area became swarmed with MPs. Real ones, with professional attitudes and strict adherence to policy, making a direct line for the two alchemists. Mustang got dragged into some bureaucratic nonsense and was led away peacefully to deal with the fallout.

Ed was pitifully relieved.

The Colonel sent glances back to Ed as the MPs tried to discuss him giving a proper statement, information, and an official account for the record. Ed didn’t return the favour.

He let himself be whisked away to the back of a medical truck, resting amongst the dozen and a half of military issued vehicles. It appeared as though they were setting up the train station as a temporary base of operations.

The young alchemist didn’t even have the energy to protest when two young officers helped him up from the bench and each locked an arm around his middle. The way his legs were shaking from chills and plain old sleeplessness made him refrain from snide comments, though he came close to snapping when one asked if he’d prefer they carry him.

They didn’t say much after that, just warned him every now and again to watch his step and took note of the missing arm. There was pity in their eyes, written in the lines of their faces, thick as ancient text and grating on Ed’s nerves. But again, his energy was firmly washed down a gutter and he just wanted this to be _over_. His pride would damn well hold up at the back of his throat; it wasn't worth fighting.

He was tired.

As they deposited Ed into the hands of a bright looking woman, clad in a uniform like theirs with a badge sewn onto the lapels. “Hey, wait,” Ed called to them before they could scurry off.

The two paused, looking back at him curiously. “Yes?”

“Could you keep an eye out for my arm? The metal one, I mean.” Smooth. Impeccable. _Idiot_. “It’s not broken. Or, it shouldn’t be.” Ed winced at his own rambling. “The walls are hollow, it might’ve been left there.”

“The walls—oh. Right. Of course.” They gave him a mild, somewhat sympathetic salut before vanishing into the stream of military personnel, swallowed into the humble buzzing of voices. It was a mix of young and old, practiced captains woven into their respective packs of officers and moving in a dizzying, blizzard-like pattern. Commands blared out over the station, directing squadrons to certain places, detailing to processes of arrest they should follow.

It didn't do the pounding in his head any favours, that was for certain. He supposed it would be pointless to flip them off for the transgressions, and besides in light of everything else, Ed didn't care.

“Let’s get a look at you, hum?” The woman said. She helped him climb into the back of the truck, covered by a tarp with the back open. It was stacked with boxes, bags of saline and blood hanging from hooks on the walls and ready for emergency use. Bandages were swathed into rolls, stacked in cases alongside secured trays of little metal tools.

Ed leaned against one wall. The truck was, to his shock, pretty damn clean. He supposed it should be expected though, seeing as its express and exclusive purpose was to treat the wounded.

Which was him, apparently. Yay.

Ed sighed, sank back against the wall and carefully situating his leg out in front of him while the woman slipped on rubber gloves and picked through a layer of first aid kits, varied in size and content. Ed tuned in out, staring out at the expanse of open land, right up to the wall that peaked over the hills where a line of soldiers marched.

He found himself stealing glimpses to the station where Mustang had disappeared into, both dreading and… _no_ , just dreading, for the moment when he reemerged.

Ed didn’t want to see or talk to or be around the Colonel. His head was still fuzzy, the rest of him worse for wear.

“Hey, what’s your name?” His attention was brought back to the woman. She knelt beside him with a small array of bottles and, sadly, a suture kit. She was eyeing the cut on his forehead and Ed cringed.

Her hand waved in front of his face briefly. “You with me?”

Ed blinked. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Are you feeling lightheaded?” She asked.

“A little.” He admitted. Talking was a chore, but it beat awkward silence. The woman nodded in a business-like matter, busying herself with some preparative task. It was a relief that he couldn’t find any patronizing sympathy or looks of remorse. She was kind and clinical.

“Alright, let me know if you think you’re going to pass out. Can you answer my first question?”

“Huh?”

“Your name.” Her hands flew across the supplies effortlessly, barely breaking eye contact to douse a cottony swap in strong smelling disinfectant. Maybe Ed was more out of it than he’d thought. Or maybe she was just talking a little fast. Who knows.

“It’s Ed,” He supplied.

She smiled lightly, a hand reaching to brush back his hair, looking at the gash critically. Her voice remained level and conversational. “Nice to meet you, Ed. I’m Sonia. Think you can answer a few more things for me?”

“I guess.”

“Cool. You might wanna close your eyes for a minute while I clean this up.” Ed obliged, feeling the sting of medicinal alcohol, scrubbing away both dried and still trickling blood. He breathed through his nose.

“So,” Sonia started lightly. Ed braced for an influx of invasive, medical jargon loaded questions. “What’re you worrying about?”

He looked at her in surprise. “What?”

“Eyes closed.” She reminded him sternly. He frowned, but returned to staring at the back of his eyelids. “You seem a bit antsy. Thought it would help if you got it off your chest.” Her hand pulled away, taking the chilled sting antiseptic with it.

Ed cracked his eyes open to find her stringing up a hooked needle. No anaesthetic for him. Goddamn.

One gloved hand pinched the skin carefully. Ed successfully managed to not flinch when he felt the sharp point cleanly dip beneath his skin, but failed to repress the shudder when it was pulled through, the thread running itself between the open cut. “Just tired is all.” Ed replied in a hiss.

Sonia didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press further. “Alright. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

He swallowed back another yelp as she tied off another stitch. “My ankle is broken.”

“Ouch. You been keeping off of it?”

“Ah, no. Not really.” A small stream of blood branched down to his nose. She brushed it away before it could colour the rest of his face with a knowing huff.

“ _Figures_. Anything else?”

The needle pinched through his flesh again, pulled taut and left in a firm knot. Sonia’s mouth pressed into a line as she worked. How she managed to uphold their conversation, Ed had no idea. He lifted a shoulder in a weak shrug. “My arm is a little burned.”

“Burned?” She repeated incredulously. An engine revved off to the side, just beyond view. He heard a few shouts of argument and the pounding of steel-toed boots. “It...It wasn’t that Flame Alchemist, was it?”

Ed’s hand flicked at nothing, digging into the small crevices between the metal floor where the panels lifted and nails made little bumps, hiccuping their way across the surface in a line. Sonia frowned, finishing the fifth and, presumably, final suture with nothing more than the sharp metallic _clip_ of scissors against the string.

His head pounded viciously, beating in opposition to his heart that has such a slow rhythm it might as well have been a lullaby. He was _really_ _fucking tired_. He didn’t really register Sonia packing up the kit splayed out beside her, casting him a quizzical glance. “Ed? You spacing out?”

“Migraine.” He said wearily.

“I’ll get you some painkillers when I’m finished, alright?”

“Damn, okay I guess.” He grumbled. “Why not now?”

She waved dismissively. “Wouldn’t want you throwing them up.” He slumped back against the wall, bringing his hand up to gingerly prod at the line of threads. It stung a little, feeling tight against his skin and still damp with alcohol. Sonia swatted his hand away. “You stop that.” She snapped. “Your hand’s _filthy_.”

Ed breathed out a brittle laugh. “You’d be a great nurse.”

“I’m aiming for radiologist, actually.”

Her attention moved to his arm, gaze sweeping over the damage steadily in a way that screamed out _familiarity_ ; she’d probably dealt with this before. He felt a little bit of the tension that had furled up between his shoulder blades dissipate. Ed hadn’t even realized how coiled up he’d been. When the muscles finally relaxed, he let out an audible sigh, a few pops singing out from his spine.

The horror slowly washed itself clean in time with the medic’s work, her hands practiced in each motion. Even through the prodding and icy pain that came with her curtaining his arm in a damp cloth, he started to unwind. At some point, his eyes fell shut, mindlessly content with the greenish patterns that drew square-steps across his eyes and spiralled endlessly.

His thoughts were dragged right along with it, falling off the cliff face of sensibility to the craggily, clustered rocks of bitterness below. He heard a muffled voice somewhere off in the distance, but didn’t give it more than a passing glance. His thoughts were firmly trained on… _that_.

Mustang killed Teller. The act itself wasn’t particularly shocking, he was a solider, after all, and had been dragged by the heels into one of the bloodiest conflicts in Amestrian history. The Colonel wasn’t divorced from violence, nor did Ed think he was.

Death lived in the seams of every military uniform.

_That’s how it works._

But still is had been cruel. _Needless._ They’d done terrible things, Ed understood the gravity of it better than most people could ever hope to but _fuck_ —the _screaming._ It made every inch of him feel sick with panic and even now, with the cool breath of a fan beating down from overhead, Ed felt unbearably hot. Like he had been plunged right into an inferno and left to writhe. It almost did happen.

Even if he could look past the manic, crazed horror of watching Mustang—someone he had been fighting with himself to _trust_ since Marcel took a verbal firing squad to his faith—torch people, he couldn't see farther than the fact that he had done it for no other reason than _he could_ as their pleas fell in garbled piles alongside melted flesh. 

“Did you hear me?” Sonia tapped his cheek. He blinked at her.

The adrenaline had well and fully been eaten up, leaving him feeling sluggish and more venerable than he was comfortable with. Ed shook his head. “No, sorry. Kinda out of it.”

“You didn’t tell me how you got the burn.” She said. “It looks pretty… _deliberate_.” She picked the phrasing carefully. The use of _kid gloves_ became readily apparent and Ed wanted to bark out some mean comment to make her back off, but that wouldn’t really be fair to his raging headache.

Or fair to _her_. She was trying to help. This was the safest he'd felt in ages.

Ed sincerely wasn’t in the mood for an argument and, judging by her expression that was carved in layers ofdubiousness and analyzing, she wasn’t looking for one.

Sonia didn’t budge in her stance, crosslegged and arms folded over her chest, waiting patiently for an answer. When he stayed silent, she deflated a little, hands dropping, returning to some task he didn't have the wherewithal to register. “I noticed you flinched earlier, sitting with the Flame Alchemist. Back when we all first got here.” The rubber of her gloved hand brushed his face, combing back his still bloodstained hair and taping a strip of thin gauze over the set of stitches. “I’m not going to get you or him in trouble, but whatever happened is weighing on you.”

“It wasn’t him.”

“So what’s got you all jumpy?”

“I don’t know…” He faltered. “It doesn’t matter.”

Sonia smoothed the last papery line of tape in place, shuffling back to where his foot lay. It was propped up on a rumpled blanket. When had that happened?

She sat back on her heels with a small smile. “Sure it does! Who am I gonna tell anyways? I’m the perfect confidant.”

Ed sagged against the wall, feeling the peeling paint catch strands of his hair and tug them loose from his already ruined, tangled braid. He should ask for a comb or something because the mats it had started to tie into was going to drive him absolutely nuts and maybe, if he was lucky, someone would have an elastic on hand—

_Focus!_

Ed shook his head. It made a few starry constellations dance to life, skipping across his line of sight like a personal meteor shower “You’re awfully pushy, you know.”

Sonia shrugged. “My girlfriend tells me that a lot too.” She started to unwrap the knotted lines of fabric that kept his ankle from fully rolling into the land of no return. He could barley feel her touch as the muddied linen was peeled away. “So?” She prompted.

His face was shadowed over by his hair, the golden looking rather vibrant in an unearthly way against his skin. It had grown pale as exhaustion sunk its hooks in andstrength was leached out, sucked into the metal and chewed up by the shots of pain that ricocheted through his skull. His brow furrowed stubbornly. “It doesn’t matter.” Ed repeated.

Sonia cast the old, makeshift bandages aside and lining up a curved set of metal wedges, flattened to accommodate the shape of an arm or leg. She concentrated, leaving him to stew in the subpart answer for a long while.

As it so happens, Sonia was a godsend and knew what she was doing; it only hurt as much as a bruise.

Oh, right. He’d forgotten to mention the whole _getting strangled_ thing earlier. That was probably why talking hurt like drinking chlorine and his voice was ragged, come to think of it. Eh, it’s not that important.

In a blink, she’d finished re-wrapping the break, settling back on her heels with a sigh. “You should talk about it, you know. With the Flame Alchemist, I mean.” She made a vague gesture to, well, _all_ of him. “It’s already eating you up. If you ask, I’m sure you’ll get an answer.”

The outside had fallen silent, a hard sheen glaring down from the cloudless sky and lighting up the internal part of the truck. Ed offer a stiff nod.

The sound of footsteps against the well-trodden dirt registered slowly, along with a muted metal rattling. A voice called. “Major Elric!”

Sonia turned towards the noise curiously as she discarded her gloves, tucked into a back pocket. Her eyebrows raised, legs swinging over the back of the truck and leaning forward to watch as the same two MPs from before came barreling into view. They ground to a halt, both winded and half hunched forward.

“Major Elric,” One huffed with a sunny look about him. Victorious, one might call it. Ed was close to informing him of how inappropriate and disrespectful the expression was, considering the fact that he felt like a bird that had been knocked to the ground by a tennis racket and given a light singe, but he held his tongue. Better to let the man keep his dignity.

Sonia turned to him with a wild look, sputtering. “ _Major?!_ ”

Ed looked at the two expectantly. They straightened. “You were right. We found an automail arm in the wall.”

“Hooray.” He deadpanned the cheer, waving a hand to them. The officer moved forward, sliding the limb across the ground and into Ed’s grasp. Hefting the damn thing pulled at his burn, stinging in a way like when one outgrows their own scar tissue.

“Are you okay to reattach it right now?”

“Yes.” Ed replied with a nod. “Oh, also I’m going to black out.”

That was the last thing he remembered. His grace was unmatched.

* * *

After having his account scrawled down on some official, black and green document, one of the Captain's (who had hauled their team in and was presently conducting investigations like a miracle worker) told Roy to go get looked over by a medic.

Most of them were busy cleaning up the mess Roy had made close to the wall. He blinked at the Captain. “I’m fine,”

He shook his head. “No, no. We can handle things from here.” He insisted. “I got a call from someone in Central saying that you should get a once over by _someone_.” The man ushered him down the steps of the station, through the barricade of cars and trucks that were piled around the iron-clad train tracks.

Internally, Roy cursed Hughes out and declared him a traitor. A first class prick who Roy undoubtedly owed his life but like hell that was going to stop him from planning out a long, very strongly worded phone call once he was let off the hook.

Proverbial, of course. There were still other things that kept his tensions high. Less of a _what_ and more of a _who_. He tried not to wince at the thought and returned his attention to the Captain. “This van is headed to my county’s hospital, only about an hour and a half away.”

“I don’t need a hospital, Captain.” Roy said tersely.

He gave the alchemist a knowing look. “Exhaustion can do some nasty things. Besides that, you got a little banged up through the night. Something internal could’ve happened and you haven’t even realized it. Better safe than sorry, I say.”

Roy was led to the back of a covered truck with a courteous nod. He relented after only two seconds of the staring match, his fortitude long having whizzed away on vacation at the worst of times.

Somehow the pliancy landed him in the back of a med-truck, sitting across from a passed out Ed.

There was a young woman tidying something in the corner, down on one knee and muttering softly. She caught Roy’s eye and put a finger to her lips, nodding towards Ed.

He was half upright, his automail leg folded under him, one arm cushioned under his head, leaning against the flat of a box with his nose buried in his sleeve. His metal arm was back in place.

That was good.

And Ed was out _cold_.

Roy took a moment to actually look over the kid, wincing at the sight of a dark, almost black line that curled up his throat. He could make out the purple lines where the rope had been ridged. Someone—the young woman, presumably—had properly wrapped his foot and had it sat it up on a rumpled sheet.

He was sporting a bandage over the split near his hairline and a damp cloth tied over the burn that was gripped around his wrist and forearm. A thin plastic line disappeared near his elbow, the rest of it running up towards a bag that lay nailed up against the wall before it turned to canvas.

Roy’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, squinting.

The medic moved to his side with a decidedly unimpressed, no-nonsense air about her. His eyes darted back to the IV before meeting the woman’s questioningly. She shot a glance over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. “Oh, he’s fine.” She told him.

“Then why the…” He waved, feeling a little dumbstruck and helpless. The medic didn’t miss a beat.

“Dehydration.” She informed with a clam smile. “Now let’s see what you’ve done to yourself.”

She was impersonal about it, poking and prodding and flashing a light across his eyes. The woman glared rather harshly at his fingertips, the skin of every digit on his right hand blistered and scorched down to the knuckles.

Through shock or stupidity, he hadn’t really thought about it until now.

It started to itch and pull in a steady, agonizing way. “You’re gonna need a skin graft.” She told him. “Looks like you put your hand in a fire pit.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

She eyed him before getting back to work, smearing on a dense layer of antiseptic before loosely covering his hand in a damp sheet of gauze. Apparently there was a bruised rib making breathing a bit unpleasant. She tossed him painkillers and a flask of water, climbing out the back of the truck and landing on the dust-powdered road.

“We’re understaffed at the moment so I’m all you’ve got for a driver. The engine is a bit loud, give a shout if anything goes bad, yeah?”

Roy nodded haltingly. “Of course.”

The woman moved to leave, but hesitated. She cast him a sidelong glance, smooth and steely. “You should talk to him.” Her chin jerked towards Ed. “If he wakes up, I mean. I’m assuming you’re his CO…?” Her head tilted, waiting for an answer.

Roy swallow and nodded. The woman’s expression softened. “He was nervous about something. Talk to him.”

She disappeared around the side of the truck before Roy could even process what she said. He blinked at the empty space, bewildered and oddly impressed. A _medic_ had just given a high ranking officer a _command_. It wasn’t explicit, but something about her tone made it clear.

The boldness was pretty admirable, in it’s own sort of disrespectful way.

Roy slumped down against to wall helplessly, his gaze turning to the open back end of the truck as the engine rumbled to life, coughing out a puff of smoke. The sun was singing down in a chorus of yellow light.

It was pretty.

Roy felt terribly out of place.

He watched the stone wall in the distance pull out of view as the vehicle started down the road, counting the seconds until it was out of sight.

He craned his neck, trying to catch a final glimpse of it and all it's horrors, stemming from some morbidly curious part of him, wondering if he might see a charred puddle of a body being carted out.

Of course, he didn’t catch that final glimpse, and even if he had, it was too far off to make out any details, save for the horde of soldiers that congregated around the hole he'd alchemically blasted through the stone. Roy kept his eyes trained out the back, eyeing the road as it flew out from under him, twisting and freckled with uneven patches.

The ride was a bit bumpy, but peaceful. The sky, as far as he could see, was crisp and clean, with only the occasional wispy cloud stumbling through the sun’s peripheral. He could watch its shadow trekking across the hills until it was blown apart by a stubborn breeze.

The world should know better than to appear in such a lovely way right now. It was unkind and taunting.

The metal of the truck was cool, air light and breathable in that early-morning-dampness kind of way. It sent quick chills down the back of his neck, but nothing more. It wasn’t empty of smells, mostly overtaken by a tinge of smoke and dust and, thankfully, was distinctly gasoline wrought and only managed to make his mind race once or twice.

There was so stench of blood or hissing steam sliding off of skinned forms.

Those few times where it did make his throat tighten, his eyes strayed to the kid passed out in the corner and the words of his bold young medic resurfaced with a vengeance.

That he should talk to Ed.

 _Hah_. What a fucking joke.

He dwelled on it, internally preparing what he would say in the case that Ed managed to claw his way out of unconsciousness. Roy skimmed through lists in his head, counting out names and making note of different factors, trying to take everything into account.

He was _trying_ to ready himself for the coming conversation that would surely end with a proverbial, but not unexpected bullet to the chest. The gun had already been fired, the round moving in slow motion and there wasn’t anything Roy could do about it. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t doge and he didn’t even dare to consider firing back.

It was coming at him calmly with the force of an earthquake, a hurricane and a bomb all wrapped into one with a sickly little bow.

Roy was just waiting for the damn thing to hit.

It wouldn’t be pleasant, but he’d survive.

There might be broken bones (trust) and blood (hate) by the lungful, be he'd survive.

About a half hour or so into the trip, he heard Ed began to stir. Roy half hoped the kid would stay sleeping just so he could be a little better rehearsed and ready. Who was he kidding? This was going to be hard no matter how much time he had to think. No amount of planning would be enough.

Ed’s eyes cracked open into the watery daylight as he straightened up.

Roy turned away, keeping his sights locked on the horizon as best he could as though it would help the sudden seasickness that welled up in his stomach. He kept his gaze steady as well as he was able to. Which is to say, not well. They wandered without permission as Ed blinked, looking around blearily before his attention settled on Roy and his face became sharp and grim.

Roy’s good hand curled into a fist, practically able to feel the white hot burning of those bright, angry chatoyant eyes, searing twin holes through his head. Ed shifted, righting himself and untangling his automail from the IV. He stared at Roy.

Roy stared at the sky.

The sky glared at him cruelly.

Roy took a measured inhale, still not meeting the younger alchemist’s gaze. “I know some decent officers around Eastern Command. They’re good for keeping secrets and would always welcome a new recruit to their team.” He started, willing the words to be strong and promising.

The road took a quick turn and the truck hitched a little as it skidded over a pothole. Roy pressed on. “Transfer papers might take a while to go through.”

His head hurt. His hand hurt.

Something else hurt too but he wasn't completely sure what.

Roy's eyes lifted for a split second and Ed was completely unreadable, his expression practically vacant. 

The older man swallowed. “If you’d want to leave the east altogether, Central would be your best bet. It’s farther from your mechanic, though. Not sure if that’ll be much of an issue, but you could always get an escort when going for maintenance. Hughes could pass along leads. You would have to investigate on your own time, and whoever you’re under might be strict about Alphonse coming around.” He tried to keep himself from rambling, but Roy could feel it starting to slip. “A letter of introduction might be able to fix that, though, and I could get in touch with some of the more lenient members of senior staff. If you need a recommendation for—“

“What?” Ed breathed.

Finally, he looked to the blond and his voice died mid-sentence. The kid was wide eyed and blinking, owlishly confused and his arms both slack at his sides.

“Transfer?” He croaked. His voice sounded like he’d taken a liking to swigging battery acid.

Roy hesitated before nodding. “You and your brother still need military resources,” He explained, managing to sound detached whilst a voice casually reminded him how severely he’d broken any trust Ed once had in him. The look on his face was proof enough—he looked shocked right down to the core. “If you’re no longer going to be in my division,”

“Wait.”

“The least I can do is find someone suitable to help you two.”

“Hold on,” Ed interjected, but Roy couldn’t bring himself to put a stop to the words that bounded outwards.

It was like some floodgates had been opened up and the cold, unwelcoming feeling was drowning him from the inside. It wasn’t something he could stop, much like the bullet that was starting its journey through his sternum and leaking conviction like a broken spout.

“I don’t doubt they’d accept in a heartbeat, putting together the paperwork—“

“ _Stop_.” Ed’s voice raised enough to snap him out of the little speech. He shook off the glassy feeling and tried to pick apart the blond’s expression before metal and gunpowder rammed its way through his ribcage. A moments warning could help soften the blow, even if it’s just by a little.

But Ed was just _watching_ him.

He looked to the younger alchemist, feeling taken aback. Ed’s eyebrows pinched together. “Are _you_ transferring me?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you transferring me.” He asked again; Ed’s expression, eyes to jaw, was startled and still painfully exhausted.

“Not directly.” Roy said slowly. “But you’re well within your rights to request it.”

He silently braced for the impact, eyes shut, his head lowered by a fraction and feeling strangely peaceful, despite every voice and instinct that lived in his person wailing that he shouldn’t just let this happen. He felt resigned because, in truth, he shouldn’t have lost it like he did. Forget it feeling like a betrayal to Ed, it was a betrayal to _himself_.

Years ago he’d sworn to keep a lid on his temper, promising that he’d reign in the violent, drilled instincts that lingered from the cruel mundanities and casual, bloody prospects of war.

He failed and these were the consequences.

Ed recoiled, his mouth pressed into a hard line. “Why—what makes you think I’d request a transfer?” He looked stunned in an almost neutral way. But… no, he sounded hurt.

“I…” He paused for a long moment. The bullet receded and something began to pour out. Resolve? Blood, maybe? Roy raised his head to glance at Ed. His failed miserably at keeping his gaze down and ended up in a stalemate, trapped by the kid’s expression. The older took a careful breath. “I assumed that you...” He trailed off with a meek shrug.

“That I _what?_ ” Ed snapped incredulously. There was the anger, bubbling like it was supposed to and making each word like a spearhead.

“After _that,_ I was sure you would want to be out of East City.”

“I don’t…” Ed looked away, his attention drawn to the rubber tube stuck to his forearm, fixated as though he’d never seen one before. “I mean, _no_. I’m not going to request anything.”

“Oh.” Roy said plainly.

“I—I just... _why?_ ” Ed still didn’t look up, but both hands twisted, treading in place for not other reason than for the sake of movement itself. Twice he tried to smooth them down., but the twinges came back within moments. Unless his memory was failing sooner than Roy expected it to, it meant that Ed was entering one of those rare, quietly anxious dazes. The kid tended to bury whatever was going on behind the scenes, curtains drawn shut and throwing on a loud of enough show on a day-to-day basis that no one would bother asking questions, but these little breaks in character were like an intermission—seeing actors without their costumes or a heart sewn onto a sleeve.

“I thought you said that you didn’t want to hear it—“ He began hesitantly, thinking back to the pure measure of vitriol in Ed’s voice when he’d told Roy to _please just shut up._ The younger was slowly furling up, his shoulders tensed and somehow both leaning towards and away from Roy.

“I know what I said but…” Ed let out a frustrated noise. “I just don’t _get it_. You could’ve incapacitated them. You could’ve just injured them or knocked them out.” His head remained bowed as he hissed out the question once again. “So _why?_ ”

Roy opened his mouth to answer, but his response wavered at the back of his throat. The truth of the matter was that he should have seen it coming, the destruction and chaos that alway cried outward when fire came into the picture.

He should have expected the outburst from the very _moment_ those dark, clinging thoughts had started to tease at the edges of his consciousness and chip away and whatever morality he had left in the rotten spot between his ribs where a spine might be. You know, buried under steel and ashes. It was already struggling, so the little darts of hate made quick work of it.

Roy should have _known_.

Even if there were other reasons.

(And there _were_.)

All the signs were there and he did exactly nothing to prevent it save for one to two moments of hesitation that had primarily been for Ed’s sake—so that he’d be able to find the kid and squish down the broken record of a voice that skipped around the walls, taunting him.

_Don’t you get it? He’s already in the ground._

_A scream._

“Fire is dangerous.” He decided on after a while. “There’s a reason flame alchemy isn’t widely practiced and... and there’s a reason why I was so _effective_ during war.” He failed in not spitting the word. It had been used too many times to describe terrible things to feel anything other than bitter.

And now the kid would be gone, right? Even if it was slow and lazy in motion, Ed would drift away, dragging with him the ends of whatever kind of respect he’d had for Roy, if there ever was any to begin with. He waited for acceptance or a question.

Instead, Ed glowered at the floor of the truck and positively _snarled_. “Bullshit.” Roy’s head shot up. “Fire saved my ass like four times in the past day and it didn’t _kill anyone_. The fire didn’t do that, _you did_.”

He felt numb and careless. Roy sighed. “Yeah. I did.”

“And I wanna know why. Cause okay, sure, you’re a jerk and a soldier—“ What an odd thing to point out. “—but you’re not like _them_ , unless I really misjudged you.” The blond took a pause to breathe, levelling his tone better than Roy thought he knew how to. Hell, better than any kid should be able to do _at all._ “So why did you do burn them?”

“You misjudged me.”

Ed shut his eyes, wilting against the wall and once more stilling his hands for a few seconds. Their melodic movement, though still microscopic, was back before the younger alchemist even started talked again. “Colonel. Please stop avoiding the question. I’m not going to freak out I just need you to tell me.” Ed sounded alarmingly unguarded.

“They deserved it.” Roy muttered.

“That’s a terrible answer.”Ed bit out, his voice rising inch by inch.

“It’s the only one I have.”

“No it isn’t.”

“It _is_.” He replied quietly.

Ed’s shoulders hunched further. “You’re a bad liar.” He spat.

His own words turned against him.

Roy’s patience dwindled, his tone rising a little to match the force behind Ed’s. “Why do you want to know so much?” He demanded, gesturing to the younger alchemist with a sharp wave. “It was a shitty thing that I did without thinking. What does reasoning have to do with _any_ of this?”

“I just want an answer.”

“I _gave you_ an answer.” Roy snapped. The kid twitched, shrinking back against the wall. _Why?_

“You gave me an _excuse_.” Ed muttered.

Roy glowered, rising a little. It was stupid. He should try to stay calm and not let himself get out of control but the frustration was eating away at him. He didn't have anything left to loose. “It’s the same thing! What difference does it make?!”

“Shut up.”

“No, I—you can’t just _do that._ You’re pissed, _fine_ , but what the hell is going on?”

“Shut up.”

“ _Fullmetal_ —“

Ed tensed. “ _Don’t_.” He said lowly. “Don’t call me that.”

“What?!”

“Don’t.”

“ _Why not?_ ”

The blond curled and shot the same phrase like a projectile flying from a canon. “Shut up.”

“What the _hell_ happened?!”

“Nothing happen. Stop talking.”

He swallowed back a shout. “ _No.”_

Roy was in the middle of making another mistake. He could feel it even as the words left mouth. He should stop talking… he should leave this alone and let Ed slog through whatever it was alone because _that’s how it worked_. That’s how it was _supposed_ to work. It was a mistake but he couldn’t stand to let it go.

So he scowled and barked out the question.

“What _possible reason_ is there—“

“I’m sick of being scared of you!” Ed cried.

Finally.

He finally… _dammit_.

The road became flat, turning from dirt and stone to rolled out cobblestone and mortar. The truck stopped jostling. Ed had finally looked up and was devastatingly truthful. Roy stared, wide eyed and processing the words slowly.

“… _What?_ “ He managed after an unbearably long, still moment of only a humming engine and the flickers of sunlight through the canvas roof.

_He’s scared of you._

_Fuck._

Ed blanched, seeming shocked at his own words. “Wait. No, no, no _wait_.” He tried to backtrack.

“Fullmetal?” Roy said slowly.

He… he flinched. Again.

“ _Don’t._ ”

Roy’s mouth snapped shut.

“I’m not…” Ed scrubbed a hand over his face. “I _wasn’t_ —“ _God_ , he sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “—I just want to rationalize this. That’s all.”

“Hey, wait a second.” Roy shifted, planning to move forward as much as the small space would allow, but aborted the idea as soon as he saw Ed’s frame jolt.

“Just forget it.”

Roy recoiled. “You can’t expect me to just—“

“Colonel,” He warned lowly, telling the older man to back off but like _hell_ he would.

Roy shook his head, still gapping and just mildly horrified enough to have it show on his face. “Since when are you— _why—_ “

“I’m not!” Ed interjected. He pulled back like he’d been burned and kept his eyes downcast. “Just drop it.”

The kid scrubbed a hand over his face with an incomprehensible mumble, nearly yanking out his IV from the quick motion and _Roy…_

_Stopped breathing._

It was only for a moment, but the air wrapped itself around his lungs, pushing and squeezing until he felt a little dizzy with a dreadful bloom of thorns circling his heart. It twisted rather violently and Roy swallowed.

“Was that why you kept flinching…?” He asked carefully.

Because he’s not an idiot. It may have taken a while to fully catch on to the twinges and the way the blond had shied away from him all through the night thanks to a distinct lack of sleep.

But he still _noticed_. It had become glaringly obvious back in the library and increased tenfold when the _Flame Alchemist_ used his damned flames. Ed didn’t answer, instead he sunk lower and looked like he wanted to disappear.

The older alchemist stiffened, his tone hitching. “You can’t just _say that_ and think I’ll let it go.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ed hissed. “Who cares.”

Roy blinked before his face pitched into a scowl. “ _Who cares—_ I fucking care!” He almost shouted.

Ed shot him a withering look but it didn’t deter Roy one iota. He glared with a mix of confusion, uncertainty and _fear_ , all of it traipsing about in the open. “Just answer the question.” Ed rasped, looked away, like holding the older man’s gaze was physically painful.

Roy stared at him hard. “I _panicked_.” He stated plainly. “I was sick of letting them toy with the both of us so I took the easy way out. I don’t know what happened because you refuse to _talk to me_ but they actually managed to scare you and you’ve been jumpy ever since. I didn’t want whatever it was to happen again. So I _panicked_.”

“Nothing _happened_.”

The truck felt more and more closed in, a tight space with no room to really breathe, but with a gapping distance all the same. Roy didn’t know how to navigate this. He was already being weighed down by a mountain of fully conscious, dextrous guilt that shifted to stay on top of him with every twitch.

He had a halo of horror that made everything feel a little hazy and the the pointed, needle-like shards of desperation digging a hole through his stomach. And of course, there was the bullet, patently waiting to finish running him through.

Ed was like an equation with half the variables missing and roughly ten times too much anger and hurt splayed cleanly over the surface.

He was on a minefield.

In the midst of a precarious, reckless gamble that could cost him more than he could really afford to lose. Not that he had anything left. Roy was betting his person on this and it may very well backfire splendidly. He inhaled slowly and tried to piece together his odds, even if it would be tedious and painful as pulling teeth.

Ed’s voice cut through the steady clatter of rubber wheels over the stone.

“He copied your voice.”

Roy’s mind screeched to a halt.

“Nothing _happened_ he just started talking and it sounded like you." Ed shrugged. "And it was dark.” 

Roy felt his stomach go cold and goosebumps began to race along his skin. It made too much sense and _fucking hell_ he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t had a sneaking suspicion for a while now but hearing Ed say it out loud was just… awful.

Roy clenched his jaw and studied the kid as he spoke in a halting, unsure tone. “But _nothing happened._ I mean, he made some threats and tried to freak me out but didn’t _actually_ do anything… not really, anyways.”

“Not really?” He breathed back, horrified and with guilt roaring through his head.

“He fired a blank.” Ed paused to blink down at his hands. “And it sounded like you.”

One wheel hit something hard. Ed grasped the box next to him to stay balanced, leaning on it as his eyebrows pressed together in an ambiguous, unsure but absolutely pained expression. “I know it wasn’t because it literally couldn’t have been but—“

“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain it.” Roy told him gently.

Ed bowed his head with a miserable exhale. “This is so fucking _stupid_.”

“Hey.” Roy tried to catch his eye. “You have every right to be upset.”

“I’m not _upset_.”

His expression softened a little. “Okay, fine. Then you have every right to be scared.”

Ed laughed bitterly, pulling himself from whatever troubled reverie he’d fallen into. “Scared of _you_. Of all people.”

“Are you still scared?” He asked cautiously.

“I…” Ed’s hair fell over his face. “I don’t know."

“That’s alright.”

“I wasn’t _before_.”

“I know.”

“This is ridiculous. I shouldn’t be—“ He cut himself off.

Roy smoothed his expression best he could. “It’s fine. If you are, I mean.”

“ _Fine?_ ” Ed repeated incredulously.

He nodded. Ed looked away.

Roy cast a quick glance around the space, then stood up. It only took a few short steps to reach Ed, who stared up at him, face stoney and pressed back against the wall.

Roy sighed and sat down, leaving a few feet between himself and the younger alchemist. Enough that the kid hopefully wouldn’t feel cornered. The blond arched an eyebrow at him, still looking pretty banged up and defeated.

“What?”

Roy held up both hands, turning them front and back. “No gloves,” He said.

Ed blinked at him, the uncharacteristically _shaken up_ demeanour beginning to ebb away. “No glov—what? I can see that.”

“And you had asked why I was in the tunnels in the first place.”

“Oh.”

Roy gave him a wry, lopsided smile. “Equivalent exchange.”

The younger alchemist hesitated. His eyes narrowed a little. “Your hand looks really jacked.” He settled on.

It was much more in line with what Roy was used to from the kid. All the quiet, contemplative anger and discontent had made him apprehensive beyond belief. Because he really thought that Ed would already be out the door, handing in a letter of resignation and not even giving Roy the chance to rekindle what he’d reduced to ash.

But Ed was scared of him. It wasn't worth it.

“I talked to the family.” He started. “They would only refer to you in past tense.”

Ed squinted at him for another moment longer before fully realizing what Roy was trying to do: make it even.

Of course, he could never apologize in full for having lost control—that would take longer to fix. Whether it be days, weeks or months (years, a lifetime), he didn’t know. But Roy needed to make this much fair, at least. That, and he desperately wanted Ed to understand.

He hadn’t lied before in saying that he panicked, but that was only just scratching the surface.

He’d been told the kid was dead and then watched Ed become more and more wary of him. And maybe Roy was just angry.

They’d managed to scare the boy who’d been through hell.

Yeah, he was angry.

“Made it seem like they’d already killed you. One managed to shoot a hole through my gloves before I could use them.”

Ed nodded. “So how’d you get into the tunnels.”

“By being an idiot.”

The younger choked out a weak laugh. “Sounds about right.”

“They copied your voice too.”

“What… what did they say?”

Roy sincerely was not used to feeling this venerable, especially with someone who could normally put razors in their words and tear him to shreds without blinking. His hands had dropped back down into his lap, one subconsciously cradled by the other. “Nothing. Just a scream.”

Ed studied him with critical, overworked and far too intelligent eyes. He could almost feel himself being picked apart, reverse-engineered and the put back together. Every movement was being taken note of and he suddenly understood that expression about being dissected.

“They wanted you to think I was dead.” Ed stated calmly. He had a sympathetic look about his eyes that felt like a slap to the face.

“Scared the hell out of me doing it.” He admitted.

The younger alchemist paused for a long moment. “ _Do you really think a soldier wouldn’t kill you_.”

Roy stared, nonplussed. “What?”

“That's what he said.” His eyes wandered up the the tarp laid across the truck ceiling in a thin stretch. Shadows passed over here and there, trees spitting overhangs across the road. They reached just far enough to make the sun blink in and out for split seconds. It was all strangely serene.

“And it sounded like you.”

It had been a fight or an endurance match that Roy had been prepared for.

Nothing this _honest_.

It was… a welcome surprise. A good change in pace that was suddenly hitting him like a speeding train and making his head sway a little bit. Because they weren’t dead and, even frightened and skittish, Ed wasn’t shoving him away.

There was no accusations or shouting, just truth by the lungful (not hate) and a startling amount of ease. He thought it would be way harder to talk about any of this—really, Roy didn’t think he’d admit what he had at all. Equivalent exchange was a nasty little rule but it helped to get it off his chest.

The air was thinner and lighter now.

Ed watched him for a reaction. Roy shifted uncomfortably. He hesitantly glanced behind him at the empty space he’d previously been occupying, then back to the young alchemist who was still fitting him with a near hawkish stare, critical and anxious at the same time.

“You know I’m not going to kill you.”

“Of _course_ I know that.” The boy’s head thumped against the wall. “Won’t really go away though.”

“You know I’m not going to kill you.” Roy said again, more forcefully.

Ed scoffed under his breath. “You already said that.”

The Colonel tensed and, after a moment of deliberation, reached out. With his injured hand, specifically. Not to do anything in particular, just a feeble mockery of an olive branch, trying to wordless show in what arbitrarily complicated way he knew how that... that he _wasn’t_ going to hurt the kid.

And Ed recoiled.

 _You did this_ , one snarled.

 _It wasn’t your fault_ , another wailed.

The rest of him softly conceded that it wasn’t that simple. There are no binaries in the field of emotions—it’s a greyscale at best. It’s not an alchemic equation or a battle strategy. It doesn’t always make sense.

It only adds up when it wants to and right now it was pulling against his merger hold like a hurricane against a kite. His hand dropped and Roy did all he could to hide the guilt.

“There’s probably a second seat up front.” He said, nodding towards the far wall that was closed off and plastered in metal. “I can leave, if you want.”

Ed opened and shut his mouth, frowning at nothing while aimlessly fiddling with the line running into his veins.

“No, it’s fine.” He settled on.

Roy nodded and, with all the grace of the socially inept, paranoid over-thinker that he was, and leaned back, his good arm braced behind him.

It wasn’t fair to expect this to resolve so quickly. Take away the fact that some twisted jerk had dealt Ed some substantial phycological blows, he’d still stood by and watched as the older reduced living, breathing people to almost nothing. They’d screamed and begged and Ed saw all the destruction flying from his fingertips with ease.

Of course this wasn’t going to fade into obscurity. He can’t just expect trust without having earned it, and _god_ , it had been hard enough the first time around when Ed was only twelve and cagey beyond belief.

He would take everything like a threat and suspected ulterior motives from even the kindest of people, especially around Alphonse. Roy remembered all the times Hawkeye had offered the brothers a ride to the train station and only after a full year of declining did they accept. But still, it was a thing that had to be earned.

_That’s how it works._

“Would you stop that?” Ed snapped.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’ve got that _look_.” He gestured to Roy. “Like... like you’re waiting for a bomb to go off.”

“Hadn’t noticed.”

“Well could you cut it out? It’s weird.” The younger grumbled.

Roy damn near started laughing at the childish, stagnate look on Ed’s face. He managed to appreciate how poorly received that would be and sat up a little straighter.

“In my defence, I am waiting for a bomb to go off.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If I say something, are you going to blow up?”

Ed pressed himself back against the wall, his eyebrows raising. “I don’t know. Maybe. Fifty-fifty chance, I guess.” He shrugged.

He hardly even noticed when they stopped moving, only realizing it when there came a quick thump on the side of the truck. The medic poked her head around the corner.

“You both conscious?”

Roy almost laughed at how flippantly she said it. “Yeah.”

“Great.”

She stepped inside, the vehicle moving with her weight. Face stern, hands twitching she eased the IV out of place, a cotton ball materializing out of nowhere to press against the mark.

“I’m going to go inside and grab the staff.” She gave Ed a pointed look, then rounded on Roy. “Don’t let him stand up.”

Again, Roy found himself just a little impressed that she had the wherewithal to be telling him what to do. Ed frowned, but didn't protest like he normally might.

The young woman stepped off the back end of the truck and strode forward.

The older man turned away for a moment, merely to situate himself at the open end as to avoid the embarrassment of being ferried out for a goddamn burn on his _hand_. He could walk perfectly fine, thanks. It was only a few seconds, but in that he heard the shuffling of cloth and a frustrated noise.

He glanced back to find Ed propping himself up in an effort to get to his feet.

“Stay down.” Roy said, exasperated and a little bit stunned. Because really, who else was this self-destructively impatient?

Ed didn’t spare him a glance. “Shut up.”

“She just told you not to stand up.” He replied pointedly.

The blond paused, having hauled himself to sit on the box he’d fallen asleep over. “Actually she told _you_ not to let me stand up.”

Roy sighed to himself. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

The younger merely crossed his arms, mindful of the burn but looking intently stubborn all the while. “Good.”

Ed somehow staggered his way over and sat down at the opposite end of the truck as Roy, using the wall to keep his balance.

If he had to guess, he’d say the broken bone was starting to fully sink its teeth in. Roy knew from experience that the weeks following a broken, or even fractured bone were worse than the first few days. It dragged migraines and nausea up from the trenches.

He didn’t offer a hand. It would’ve been shot down, surely. Roy just waited, taking in the bland exterior of a hospital spread out against the morning light.

Ed curled up in his residence and followed his gaze.

“What were you going to say? Before, I mean. Waiting for a bomb to drop and whatnot.”

“Just an apology. For—“ He shrugged weakly. “—all of that."

"Huh."

"I’m sorry.”

“Oh. Okay.” There was a distinct lack of forgiveness. The hole made by hate's bullet was still spilling out his fortitude. Roy took it in stride and kept his mouth shut.

The kid paused, blinking at the harsh change from yellowy shadows to bold and blaring white walls of a hospital.

“Sorry.”

Roy didn’t miss a beat. “ _You_ have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Can you just accept the apology?” He huffed.

Roy shook his head. “Not when there’s no reason for you to be apologizing.”

“I was overreacting—“

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” The Colonel intervened before Ed could find a way to filch all the guilt for himself. That was Roy’s job this time.

“You weren’t and aren’t overreacting. It takes time.”

“ _Time_.” Ed repeated bitterly. “Time _for what?_ It wasn’t even you.”

“That doesn’t matter. You can still be mad or upset or however you want to call it. I shouldn't have done what I did regardless.”

“It does. It _should_.”

The doors, stationed in the middle of a wide wall off to the left, spotted with windows, burst open. A modest swarm id technicians and nurses filed out, headed up by their own darling little medic. She was explaining something to the staff, gesturing and pointing to different parts of herself like she was a diagram for their injuries.

Ed sighed. “I’m really fucking tired.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Colonel?”

“What is it?”

Ed’s brow creased. “This won’t be like... permanent, right? I mean, I’m not scared—“ He was. He absolutely was but was just too stubborn to really admit it a second time. He was tired and enraged and scared.“—I just don’t want to be so freaked out over nothing."

Roy watched as the nurses started their decent, a buzz murmuring about them frantically as they caught sight of the two alchemist. He watched them, but didn’t see much beyond the white and the hum. He blinked and it was night. For a moment there was nothing but a melody and a field with grinning faces.

It melted away. Ed gave him a quizzical look that shifted to something sharper. He leaned away without even seeming to be aware of it. "Still mad." He murmured. "It would just suck if this didn't go away."

He was given a sidelong glance. "D'you think it will?"

It hit him for the millionth time that Ed was a child. A child that had just lost trust in one of the few adults in his life. A child with too much responsibility and not enough time to process all the terrible things that had been handed to him on a rusty old platter.

He sounded small and unsure and frightened. Because he was. Roy wished he could lie right about now, but he'd done that enough hadn't he. With all the unwilling truth that had been spilled out just now, what was one more thing?

Roy breathed. “I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're done....  
> Feels weird. Kinda getting those post longfic blues but you know what I'm also super proud of this big dumb (affectionate) story. Put a lot of time and energy into it! I hope you all enjoyed it and thank you for sticking with me through this whole ride! 
> 
> A few things before I sign off:
> 
> One, I don't know how many of you have read my one shot "the clock strikes twelve" but the girlfriend Sonia refers to is Anne from that fic. Does this serve any purpose? No. Do I care? No. They have a cat named Mackerel. 
> 
> Two! I have a small fic lined up to be posted through January, and then after that the sequel to Capra starts. Yeehaw.
> 
> Three is that I'm politely asking that you don't explicitly spoil the code. If you want to reference the meaning, feel free, but don't say what is is please! Alrighty uh. See you next year and happy holidays to anyone celebrating!
> 
> 20-8-5-2-18-15-11-5-14-19-5-1-12-4-15-20-15-18-7

**Author's Note:**

> Come one, come all! Welcome back to the shit show! This is shaping up to be my longest fic yet and easily the most dense mystery. I'm excited!  
> Hopefully y'all are interested thus far. I implore you to pay attempt to... the little things :)  
> Give me a shout on [tumblr](https://liathgray.tumblr.com), if you want? I mostly just scream there.  
> Until next week!
> 
> 4-15-14-20 20-18-21-19-20 20-8-5 20-5-1-16-15-20


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